Smörgåsbord
by MercedesCarello
Summary: A collection of drabbles, mostly originating from Tumblr, posted as I write them. Mixture of canon character (such as Jean, Moblit, Mikasa, Carla Yeager) and OC stuff - focus characters noted in chapter titles. Mix of ratings and subjects, so rated M overall to be safe.
1. First Kill - Jean

Rating: T  
Characters: Jean, mentions of Marco  
Genre: Angst, 'Character Study', 'Off-screen'

* * *

 **First Kill**

It was strange to think about: that two completely different yet significant deaths had happened on the same day. One forever emblazoned in his memory even though he hadn't been there to see it, and the other not recalled for days even though it had been by his blade. How cruel they were as a pairing – his first loss of a person he was close to, and his first personal vanquishing of a creature he hated.

This was maybe their first peaceful night after the Battle of Trost – or at least, the one where the majority of them had been able to sleep for more than a couple of hours. Jean was awake tonight, however. Remembering. Something alien in him even caused a longing for his mother that he quickly quashed as though it could be seen, burning in him.

 _Burning…_ Marco had burned. His body…his body had vanished into the night like a Titan dissolving, like the first Titan Jean had felled in the streets of his home…Marco had died in the streets of his home…

Jean rubbed his eyes, sat up. He didn't want to get dragged into that awful mix of images, remembered sensations. He didn't like how they blurred and made it unclear what it was that Jean's blades had sliced through, who it was that had fallen under his hand. He didn't like how both deaths – could killing a Titan be called its death, truly? – had been 'in the course of duty'.

 _Duty…_ Jean raised his eyes to where their uniform jackets hung on pegs along the wall by the door. He could see their shadows wearing them, standing on Wall Rose, Wall Sina. He'd originally thought they had been training their bodies, bettering their bodies, but had they actually been turning themselves into shadows? Shadows were dutiful. Shadows couldn't die.

 _What am I even thinking about?_ Jean tipped his head right, and then left, cracking his neck. _You had your first Titan kill, and Marco died. You need to move on._

It had been a nine-meter class, short dark hair, swollen joints, a ruddy face. He remembered sweeping up its spine, having to veer around its right side to avoid its grip. He remembered the spittle spattering on his jacket as it snarled at him. He had carved into its nape in a sort of desperation rather than proficiency, and felt strangely calm and confident when it fell. How quickly his attitude had changed – how could it do that so easily by itself, but resist his attempts to change it willingly, like now?

 _Why couldn't my first kill…why couldn't it have been the one that killed Marco? I could have saved him, or at least avenged him. What did the one who killed him look like?_

Titan blood evaporated after brief contact with air. He wondered why that was, exactly. It meant there really wasn't anything left for him to destroy in vengeance, no body to continue to mutilate just as it had mutilated his friend. No – Titans were able to escape within minutes, hours at most, into steam and then nothing. Even memories of the individuals would disappear over the course of so many more being felled. Humans took longer. Their bodies had to be destroyed intentionally – collected, burned to ash – and it was up to the wind or the earth to take those ashes away forever. Even then, the memory of them lingered, possibly forever. And what could kill a memory other than time?

 _Nothing. But part of me wishes I knew how._


	2. Heaven is a Quiet Room - Carla, Kuchel

Rating: T  
Characters: Carla Yaeger, Kuchel Ackerman  
Genre: Family, 'Character Study'

* * *

 **Heaven is a Quiet Room**

"It's funny," said Carla. "I thought…this would be very different."

About seven feet away stood the only other person in the rather small, unfurnished room – a thin woman of average height with ink-black hair. She was about Carla's age, she guessed, and she did not know her name – but then, neither seemed to matter. Her own name barely seemed to belong to her anymore, like a fading dream. The woman turned from the long window that linked them both across one wall of the room, and smiled faintly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, as though to a child.

"I suppose I thought there would be more light, and clouds, and singing in Heaven," Carla reflected. "You know, the things we were always told as children."

The woman turned back to the window, and Carla did too. All that lay beyond was a lush, mottled green sparkling with a gentle rain that hadn't ceased since she'd been here. It was as though her depth perception disappeared when looking at it, but it wasn't holy unpleasant. Calming, in fact, and it translated nicely into the soothing, muted aquamarine walls of the room and the dark gray wooden floorboards under their feet. Everything was soft and quiet.

Carla couldn't tell how long she'd been here, but she knew the woman had been here before she got here. Time, like age and names, seemed to mean nothing. She caught herself wondering every so often if this was truly Heaven.

She remembered only a few things of her life before. There'd been no 'life flashing before your eyes', just a sudden stop, like when your heart skips a beat. And yes, she did remember the circumstances of her death but it had ceased to frighten her. Mostly though, her few memories were filled with those of her son, Eren, and her adopted daughter, Mikasa. Their names seemed closer to her than her own, now; their faces more familiar than the reflection staring back at her in the window pane. Remembering them – how they'd chased each other around the garden, teased each other under the kitchen table, fallen asleep together at day's end – warmed her from within and perhaps it was that unfading sensation rather than the soothing room that stopped her from being alarmed at…

 _At being dead,_ she forced herself to acknowledge.

Of course, death by the Titans had always been highly probable. But some part of her had nonetheless hoped that dying of old age, with her family around her, would be her fate. It'd been a romantic notion. There'd even been a couple of times that she'd thought an accident would be her way to go: that time she'd stupidly climbed onto the roof to help the stranded cat and had fallen, or on her sixteenth birthday when she had fallen into the river after being too careless with her friends and nearly drowned. But there had been people around her back then to help. Her actual death had been alone.

"Do you remember much?"

The woman's question startled Carla from visualizing her children's terrified faces as they fled under her order from their crumbled house. The woman had never initiated conversation, and though her quiet companionship had been pleasant, this was refreshing. "I…only a little. I remember my children. I wish I could give them some sign that I'm all right." Her hands rose and unknotted the tie that held her hair. It fell free and she let it fall over her face to hide it as she raked her fingers through it.

"Me, too."

Carla turned to her. "You had children, too?"

This time the woman smiled more broadly and it gave a glow to her pale skin and woke up her slate-gray eyes. "Just one. A son. I loved him very much."

"I also had a son, and my husband and I adopted a daughter when her family was," she struggled to remember the exact details, and couldn't, "gone. They were everything to me."

"What were their names?"

"Eren, and Mikasa," even saying their names made her smile – the same smile that she recognized in the woman's angular face. "Yours?"

"Levi."

After a pause, Carla began re-tying her hair at her shoulder though she didn't understand why it felt so natural to do. "I wonder if we'll ever see them again. Or anyone, for that matter. We can't be the only ones in Heaven." She looked around the bare room – its other three walls were featureless and sported no doors, simply wood paneling halfway up that matched the floor. "Have you always been in this room?"

"I think so, yes."

They fell quiet again. Carla returned to looking outside at the rain. It streaked the window in a mesmerizing way and the gentle taps created their own music for her as the shapeless colors beyond shifted between bright green, jade, and blue. She tried to imagine Mikasa and Eren running in the rain-soaked garden of their home; one hand reached up and pressed against the glass.

"Perhaps our children will meet one another. Or maybe they already have, and that's why we're here together," the woman said.

"That's a lovely thought," Carla said.


	3. The Price of Names - OCs, Jean

Rating: K  
Characters: Jean; Mercedes and Julia [OCs]  
Genre: Family, 'Backstory'

* * *

 **The Price of Names**

While her grandmother negotiated the trade with the merchant, Mercedes took the opportunity to sneak away. She'd never been to Trost before and was eager to explore, as her grandmother had promised her they would after she was done. Not far away she could hear the sounds of other children – laughter and shrill playful screams broken in as pleasant a way as the dappled sunlight filtered by the trees above her head. She climbed down from the cart and slipped away, down the alley created between a wrought-iron fence and the blacksmith's.

After not long of following the fence, eventually a blanket of green was revealed – a patch of grass situated at the back of a single-storied building with several windows. A bell hung on one corner on the eaves of the roof. Two older women stood talking on the porch while children her age ran around in the little yard; Mercedes realized she was looking at a school.

Mercedes was confronted with a sudden envy and sadness she hadn't experienced before. She and her grandmother had moved to Klorva a year ago, and now she was six – a year past the age she thought most children started school, the age she had looked forward to because it meant an unexpected chance at being around other kids. But her grandmother had homeschooled her. The occasional bouts of loneliness she had felt at the ranch, her home, had grown stronger and more frequent now that she was surrounded by new people, buildings, Walls. The question of why her grandmother had made that decision burned even more hotly in her now that she was staring at the thing she had been mysteriously denied.

Mercedes wandered down the rail some more, trailing it with the fingertips still sticky from the apple she had half-eaten earlier. There were maybe a dozen children, boys and girls, either running after one another, sitting in circles, attempting cartwheels. She'd not known she wanted those things until today. In the lee of another tree wedging itself against the fence, she crouched, watching them. The gaps in the bars were probably big enough for her to squeeze through, but she still felt like it was a barrier she couldn't, or shouldn't, cross. She held onto them instead.

She watched the women too – presumably the teachers. Tired but happy-looking, dressed in pale colors, their hair in practical braids and barrettes. One of them was even wearing an apron. Mothers, out of storybooks. Her mother – or rather the few memories she still tried to keep bright and front-and-center in her mind every day – had never dressed in pale colors, never wore an apron; her hair had been cut short because of all the riding and shooting she did. But her mother had smiled like them, laughed like them.

"Hey. Hey."

Mercedes looked up to see a somewhat chubby young boy with oddly two-toned hair – almond on the top, darker underneath – and a stick in his hand peering quizzically at her. She was suddenly tongue-tied. When was the last time a kid had spoken to her?

"What're you doing out there? Shouldn't you be in school?"

The question stung. She felt her bottom lip twitch and curl downward.

"Hey," he barked again.

"I'm not from here," was all she could think to say.

"Huh?" he croaked. "Don't you go to school?"

She felt a strange urge to explain everything. His amber eyes were scrutinizing, sharp, narrow – they reminded her of a cat's. It made her feel uncomfortable and embarrassed in a way she never had before. "My grandmother homeschools me."

"Why?" he continued to pester. He poked around near her feet with his stick and she stood, stepping up and away onto a tree root.

"Well what do you care?" she snapped back.

"What do you care if I care?" he quipped, and laughed to himself. He braced the stick on his shoulder and put his hand on his hip, standing in front of her triumphantly in the sunshine while she remained in shadow.

She stared at him, half-confused, half-hurt for a reason she couldn't pinpoint. Her frown deepened. "I don't know," she murmured.

His laughter stopped, and he stared back at her. After a moment he leaned forward, craning his face to peer at her again. "Hey. I wasn't serious," he said and for the first time, she heard a trace of warmth in his voice. But she didn't respond to it. For a moment or two they stood there shifting feet, examining the other like a new kind of animal they hadn't seen before. "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

Mercedes was startled by the question, but was about to answer when she was startled even more by her grandmother's nearby cry of "Ay-yah! Get back here!". She stood at the end of the alley and swooped an arm at her. Her expression was irritated but mostly, and strangely, alarmed.

Mercedes glanced one more time at the boy. "I've gotta go." She stepped off the tree and skittered away.

"Hey wait!" he called.

She stopped and turned.

"Uh…your hair's pretty," he said awkwardly, seeming just as surprised by this admission as she was.

She gave a small smile, and then her grandmother's squawk had her running again.

* * *

On the cart ride back to Klorva, Mercedes despondently played with her hair and avoided her grandmother's intermittent stares.

"Did you tell anyone anything? Did you tell that boy anything? You didn't tell anyone your name did you?"

"No," Mercedes said lowly.

"Good. Let's keep it that way as long as we can."

"I don't understand," Mercedes muttered. As always she expected her lack of understanding to be glossed over. Her father would never have done that, but her grandmother was different. This place was different.

Beside her, her grandmother sighed. The cart turned a corner and Mercedes watched Bashka's creamy mane sway in the breeze. "There are only a few people we can trust. And until we know who they are, we shouldn't give them our family name. Your name's a piece of you. Why would you give someone you didn't know a piece of you?" she asked as gently as she seemed able to manage.

Mercedes thought for a moment. "How do they trust us so we can trust them, if we don't give them something?"

Her grandmother said nothing for a moment. After a while, she resettled in her seat and pulled out a canteen, unscrewing it by holding the cap in her teeth and twisting the body rather than asking for help. "There are other ways to compel someone's trust," she stated noncommittally, and sipped. A cloud seemed to pass over her features but when Mercedes looked up, the summer sky was clear.

"What does 'com..pel' mean?"

"It's…" she waved the canteen, "when you make someone happily do, or think, what you want them to do or think without them knowing why. You make them feel like they _need_ to do whatever it is. Your father was very good at it." She sipped again. A pause, and then she looked down at Mercedes and finally smiled. "So instead of paying the price of a name, you get their trust by making them feel like they should trust you – that they _want_ to, that they _must_."

Mercedes grinned. She suddenly felt very clever. "You do that to me, Granna," she teased.

Her grandmother made a low cooing noise and slung her arm around Mercedes, dragging her closer and squeezing her into her ribs. The cart continued to rattle home.


	4. Fleur - Moblit

Rating: K  
Characters: Moblit, mentions of Hanji  
Genre: 'Off-screen', 'Character Study'

* * *

 **Fleur**

Moblit had found that it was easier to mould his schedule, his activities, around Squad Leader Hanji's, and after several years it'd become as ingrained in him as the new lines on his face and palms. He slept when she slept – regardless of whether it was day or night – and ate when she ate, let himself enjoy the quiet when she was quiet. Years ago, on his initial assignment to her squad and his enthusiastic adoption by her as her assistant, he had resisted. He'd tried to change her habits, calm her down, rein her in. It'd proved futile, and no matter how much anxiety she still gave him, he had found it far easier to change himself. He was flexible like that, he supposed – though in his more melancholy times he often wished he wasn't.

He bent back the last waxy leaf on the stem of the peach flower until it broke off, and he cast it aside. Carefully, he pressed the bloom on its side on the desk and held back its flourish of blush-colored petals with sap-licked fingertips. With his free hand, with his pocketknife, in one slow, precise stroke he cut the flower in half, from the knuckle-like swollen rusty-green bulb of its nectariferous area down to the end of the brassy stem. He set down the pocketknife. Gently, he peeled one half away from its other, and laid them side by side in the young morning light.

Despite shadowing Hanji for the majority of the hours of their lives, Moblit did occasionally take an hour or two for himself – no more. It'd become uncomfortable to be without her for too long, however ridiculous he knew that to be. Luckily, what he _had_ to occupy his mind with to cope was something he enjoyed. Hanji always had them studying Titans, but truth be told, Moblit had originally discovered his love and appreciation for science through botany; he greatly enjoyed practicing his botanical drawings. Flowers in particular had an anatomy that fascinated him more than he thought humans' ever could. It was simpler, purer, almost divine – not related to Titans at all except for its reliance on the sun. But then, what earthly thing didn't?

He repositioned himself on the rickety stool, notching the waists of his toes on one of the rungs like a bird's claws, and hunched over the desk. He picked up one of his pencils and began to sketch.

 _Nectariferous area,_ he mused, drawing the bulb he'd split open. His pencil jerked in tense, tiny strokes to create curves no bigger than a fingernail. _Ovary and ovule, leading up into the style,_ he made a careful line up and topped it with a slight notch, signifying the stigma. He began drawing the crown of anthers, eyes darting between the cocoa-colored tips and the gray mimicry he etched on the paper.

Birdsong outside, the calls of the trainees distant. They were taking advantage of the good weather and luckily that meant hardly anyone would be inside and thus less chance he'd be disturbed. He estimated he had maybe another hour of this before Hanji sprung back to life.

He smiled and paused, tipping the blunt end of his pencil toward another of the peach blossoms – still whole, still on its branch with its kin – that he'd set in water in a tankard nearby. Their faces were kissed with dew. As his eyes found their way back to his specimen, they passed over Hanji's pile of notebooks, the one currently open with its smudged ink that he reminded himself to tell her to wash off her face. He hoped the flowers would make up for him borrowing her sleeping spot.


	5. Hair Trigger - Mikasa

Rating: M  
Characters: Mikasa, mentions of Jean  
Genre: Angst, 'Off-screen', 'Character Study'

* * *

 **Hair Trigger**

She couldn't get Jean's comment out of her mind. Though initially it'd been as forgettable as a comment about the weather from a stranger, throughout the rest of the evening – and now, as she lay awake in her bunk, well into the night – it had grown louder and more pressing, as if it had a body and was running its fingers across her scalp.

 _"Your black hair is very pretty."_

Nails grating against her scalp. Hangnails snagging individual hairs. Loose tendrils of it wrapping around knuckles, bone-white as they curl and grab a fistful.

 _"Your black hair…"_

Their hair. Black, like fresh blood, like their eyes. Her mother, lying there on the floor, scissors fallen from her hand. Blood inking her mother's hair from the hatchet blow. Eyes staring, lifeless.

 _"…very pretty."_

The men had pulled her by her hair through her mother's blood and out of the house. Sometimes she could still feel the still-warm slickness between her toes, could run her tongue over the scars in her mouth carved by her screams that day. Because she was pretty. Because her mother was pretty. Because of who they were. As if no one else had black hair.

Mikasa's hand found its way out from under her pillow and fingered a strand of it. She'd cut it tomorrow, like Eren had suggested – it'd been like he'd read her thoughts before she was even aware of them. She'd shave her head if she could. Anything to be rid of that memory.

She remembered her mother telling her that dreaming of hair symbolized one's thoughts – its health and condition in the dream portraying that of one's mind. But she wasn't dreaming. She knew that. But it felt like it sometimes. Maybe if she got rid of her hair here in the waking world, she'd no longer dream of that day; maybe she'd no longer remember the sensations. Maybe she would no longer have that lingering feeling of being a commodity.

 _He was only trying to compliment me. He didn't mean anything…possessive by it_ , she told herself, reminding herself of his awkward blush that barely registered anything in her.

He didn't, but others might – no, they would. They always would. There was always that risk. If she wasn't a soldier, would it not have been long before some other gang of black-market sex traffickers would come looking for her? Because she was Asian. Because everything about her looks was a selling point, something to be listed and exploited.

Her body heated up in anger at the thought. She was being irrational, she was taking the thought too far and letting it control her too much – she knew this, but she couldn't stop it. All because of some ridiculous, offhand, hormone-driven comment. She folded her hands behind her head back underneath the pillow to stop them clenching and took deep breaths to calm herself down. She needed to get some rest, after all.

 _"Your black hair is very pretty."_

It could have been a compliment about any other part of her physical appearance and it would have had the same effect, she realized. But Mikasa also realized that very soon, people wouldn't be talking at all about what she looked like. Instead, they'd be talking about what she could do. And in the meantime those that truly mattered, deep down in the very core of her being, had never talked about it. This thought stopped the phantom pulling sensations she felt in her hair and laid itself like a cool hand across her forehead. She closed her eyes.


	6. Singin' in the Rain - Bertolt, Annie

Rating: K  
Characters: Bertolt, Annie  
Genre: Modern AU, hint of Romance

Disclaimer of the obvious: I do not own the lyrics used.

* * *

 **"And I'm singin', just singin', in the rain"**

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

"Let the stormy clouds chase…everyone from the place..."

 _Scrape, splash, clunk; scrape, splash, clunk. Scut-scut-scut._

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

"I'm laughin' at clouds…so dark up above…"

 _Scrape, splash, clunk; scrape, splash, clunk. Scut-scut-scut._

 _Chush chush; honk honk_

Bertolt paused in his picking up of the café chairs and raised a hand in a wave at the passing car; Mr Dupont's unmistakable crooked hand with its equally-ancient black signet ring tipped at him out of the window and slowly withdrew. Equally slowly, Bertolt's dropped. The gentle raindrops found their way through his hair and slipped down his temple, but he didn't mind.

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

"Hn." _Scrape, splash, clunk; scrape, splash, clunk. Scut-scut-scut._ "Let the stormy clouds chases…everyone from the place…"

An earworm; that's what they called it. Though he knew the full song – it was a classic, after all – his brain only seemed interested in a couple of lines. Maybe it was because they were the only lines that applied to him today.

 _Scrape, splash, clunk; scrape, splash, clunk. Scut-scut-scut._ That was the fourth bistro table with its two chairs now butted-up against the side of the Café Rose; only one more, and then the A-frame sign. But he took his time. He liked the rain; it made him feel like he had an excuse to look as shabby as he felt he did.

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

"And I'm singin', just singin', in the rain…" he mumbled to himself.

 _Scrape, splash, clunk; scrape, splash, clunk. Scut-scut-scut._

Well, not shabby, exactly. Plain. Average. Boring. Unappealing. Being wet from the rain would mean there was a reason for it, rather that it being something he couldn't help.

Bertolt took slow steps toward the café's sign on the corner of Bay Street and Ellings Drive; his polished black work shoes were starting to reveal where their holes were around the edges of their soles, and dampen his socks. The colorful chalk on the sign wasn't faring much better, with its lettering attempt to resist the strengthening rivulets but already darkening and giving way in spots. He'd redo it later – not like he had much urgently waiting for him at home tonight anyhow.

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

He blinked as a couple of drops tickled his eyelashes – his gaze was drawn directly across the street at the Maison Rouge Boutique, where the blonde with the strong stare was changing one of the mannequins in the honey-colored light. It always looked so warm and elegant in there – not like him. He had to remember that the white lettering across the window wasn't in fact a curtain obscuring him from her, and he looked away. His hand, with its stupid knotty knuckles, grabbed the handle of the café sign and lifted it until it clacked shut and flat.

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

"I'm laughin' at clouds…so dark up above… The sun's in my heart…and I'm ready for love…" he whispered, though the rest of the line made him sadder.

That one time she'd come into the café. The one time. And he'd messed up her order. His coworker had made a joke about him and though she'd said nothing to it, she hadn't bothered to wait around for him to remake it, and hadn't been back since.

 _Patter trickle tap tap_

One of the sign's feet got caught on the uneven brickwork, causing its opposite corner to smash into his calf. He dropped it and it landed with a tremendous crash on the sidewalk. The music in his head was suddenly gone and he was equally as suddenly very cold and wet. He couldn't help but look up at the boutique window as he grappled for it, blushing. The blonde was looking over her shoulder at him and pushing part of her fringe behind her ear. Bertolt looked away in shame and pulled his gawky frame to his feet, dragging the sign with him.

He ducked back into the alcove that formed the café's front doorstep and left it there, rushing inside. His chest was burning and not just from embarrassment. He slammed the door shut and the little bell tinkled, like the mocking laughter of his coworker – thankfully gone home for the evening already. After a moment's fuming, trying to calm his breathing and the prickling sensation in his eyes, he turned the sign on the door to 'Closed' with a wet slap of laminated card.

 _Stupid, so stupid,_ he told himself, running a hand down his face and shaking off the droplets he'd gathered.

He slowly came away from the door and untied his long black apron, bringing it over his head. Cautiously, he ventured into the relative darkness of the café, its polished mahogany traced with mint-colored light – his shoes _shush_ ed over the checkerboard tile – and toward the lace-curtained window to his right. He peered through the grove of upturned chair legs and at the boutique window. Like that morning she'd abandoned her half-made coffee, so too had she abandoned the half-made mannequin. He frowned, and looked down at a splinter the sign had given him in the side of his hand.

A small knock on the glass behind him. Bertolt span on his heel. To his shock, the blonde was peering around the Closed sign through the window. She had one of those clear plastic umbrellas hovering over her head. The strong stare he'd noted before was softer now – concerned.

He hovered uncertainly, fairly certain she couldn't see him unless he moved. Why was she here?

"Hello?" he heard her muffled call, and another knock. Then, she turned the squeaky knob and opened the door.

Bertolt's heart shot into his throat and he twitched this way and that as though searching for somewhere to hide. But there'd never be anywhere to hide.

She spotted him, and closed her umbrella and left it outside, and then closed the door too. She seemed nervous, which surprised him. "Are you all right?"

He felt tongue-tied. Had she really come over here – and so quickly – just to see if he was all right?

She gave him a small smile as though to both reassure him and explain herself, and for the first time in quite a long time, Bertolt felt genuine in smiling back.


	7. Carello Children - Shadis

Rating: T  
Characters: Shadis, OCs, mention of Erwin  
Genre: 'Backstory'

* * *

 **Carello Children**

Keith Shadis, as he always did, gave the summary list of applying military candidates a customary scan over his small nightcap of a rich brandy. Although he would only be over the Southern Division's trainees, the lists for all four divisions were compiled into one pamphlet on a clipboard that got passed around all the Head Instructors at the office. It gave him a small amount of amusement to go through the names and laugh at the stranger ones, or see which of the noblemen's spoiled children he'd have the pleasure of getting to piss their pants.

He sat back in his chair and put his feet on his desk, propping the clipboard in his lap. At the other end of the room Miranda Carlstedt-Gaus, the Western Division Head Instructor, had her silver-streaked dark head lowered to look closely at some filing. The steady _flick-flack_ of papers provided an unexpectedly soothing background noise.

Shadis wasn't sure how long he was reading for, or even which division's recruits he was looking at, but one soon caught his eye.

"Carello," he muttered.

"Hmm?" Miranda said.

"Nothing," he said.

He looked more closely at the type. 'Carello, Mercedes', innocently lying there amongst about half a page of other C surnames. It sounded familiar, but looking at the footnote of the page and identifying that this was the Western Division list didn't help with pinpointing it. He set his brandy on the desk and grabbed a pencil, drawing a line between the name and the next two columns.

"Hometown: Klorva. Next of kin: Julia Carello, grandmother. Birthdate: 01/01/831," he read. _Where have I heard that name before…_

He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much, but at this point it was like a hangnail that needed to be gotten rid of. He set down the clipboard, too, making sure to mark his page with the pencil, and went to the shelves lining one wall of the office. There they kept tomes containing all the old recruit rosters and related records, grouped according to Corps year.

 _If she's sixteen now, that'd place her relatives in the early 70s' Trainees…_ At random, he pulled out the 71st Trainees tome – his generation's worth, from when he was a Commander. As he headed back to his desk Miranda peered at him skeptically over her glasses with an amused smirk, but he did not explain himself to her. Luckily, these were listed alphabetically without being separated into Division; he found the Cs, and tried not to tear the delicate pages with his calloused fingertips in his eagerness for his curiosity to be satisfied.

Seeing the names was like remembering the lines they'd stood in on their very first day; like remembering the rows of feet piled on top of one another in the corpse wagons. He was looking at an inventory of the dead. His throat constricted; he took a sip of brandy to ease it.

… _Calliope…Cannon…Cannon…Capra…Carello._ He scanned right over the repeated ellipses. _Joaquin Carello: Western Division. Hometown: Dainis. Next of kin: Esteban and Julia Carello, parents. Birthdate: 10/10/800. Graduation rank: Unranked. Affiliation: Scouting Legion, 12_ _th_ _Squad. Death: 21/09/830, Trost._

He remembered, then. Joaquin had been an odd bird. Sharp as a razor, a top-performer, but strangely resistant to taking on any authority, and had a preference for solitary work. Spent a lot of time coaching the veterinarians, much to their chagrin. Average height, rather gaunt in the face, dark eyes and hair with an olive complexion even before they'd left on expedition. Shadis also remembered the way he'd carved open the Titan's head, like splitting a peach, to retrieve future Commander Erwin Smith from it like a stone. An inch deeper – he'd chastised him later, in the presence of both of them – and he would have carved into Smith, too. Joaquin had merely bitten into an apple by way of reply, unconcerned. Shadis' blood stirred in memory of having boiled that afternoon, and then calmed; after all, one shouldn't hold anger for the dead.

 _So is he her father, or an uncle?_ Mercedes coming to light some thirty years after Joaquin, still with the same next-of-kin…but the name Carello still snagged at his thoughts, despite the answer apparently having been found. There was more to it.

With more quizzical, ever-suffering looks from Miranda, Shadis dragged out the tomes for the 70th, 72nd, 73rd, 74th, and 75th Trainees too, and filed through them to find more Carellos. The 72nd and 75th yielded none, but the others did.

"Of the 70th Trainees – Valentin Carello: Western Division. Hometown: Dainis. Next of kin: Esteban and Julia Carello, parents. Birthdate: 22/11/799. Graduation rank: 8th. Affiliation: Garrison. Death: 14/03/830, Stohess.

"Of the 73rd Trainees – Alejandro Carello: Western Division. Hometown: Dainis. Next of kin: Esteban and Julia Carello, parents. Birthdate: 27/07/801. Graduation rank: 10th. Affiliation: Garrison. Death: 14/03/830, Stohess.

"Of the 74th Trainees – Rafael Carello: Western Division. Hometown: Dainis. Next of kin: Esteban and Julia Carello, parents. Birthdate: 06/06/802. Graduation rank: 5th. Affiliation: Military Police. Death: 31/04/834, Mitras."

The name spun over and over in his head, but he couldn't place his finger on why – as if it was something he'd blacked out in his memory like so much else. This certainly wasn't the only example of a family that had sent so many of their children to die.

"Okay I _must_ ask: what in the world are you doing?" Miranda said with a smile. "I've not seen you this frantic about something since you lost that bet with Hausmann. Do I need to get you more brandy?"

 _What harm could it do?_ he supposed. "Does the name Carello sound familiar to you?"

Miranda's smile dropped a little. "Maybe I need to get you to _lay off_ the brandy instead, Shadis. You can't tell me you've forgotten that slice of weird." She signed some papers in front of her with a tight flourish of her pen. "The Carellos have had some interesting things happen to them over the years – mostly just the strange deaths of the head-of-house and his sons. Not the normal death you'd expect for us soldiers, y'know? I think they actually moved outside the Walls – rumors went around for a bit that they were being threatened or something, and then when the sons were dropping like flies of course the rumors flew again, conspiracy theories and whatnot. But you know there's no substance to those things." She chuckled to herself. "Why do you ask?"

Shadis tapped the clipboard of the latest roster in lieu of holding it up, since it was buried under its ancestors. "You've got one of them coming into your class next month." He sipped his brandy, finishing it off.

Miranda frowned. "Really? That's…odd."

"Is it?"

She shrugged and shook her head, thinking to herself for a moment. "Come to think of it, I didn't recognize the soldier who brought us the rosters from the area HQs. I didn't think much of it at the time but he asked me something about 'any Carellos' – all happy-like, saying they were friends of his. Didn't even remember that 'til now. I told him I didn't think there were any Carello children anymore."

Shadis wasn't sure why this anecdote put him on edge, but it did. He remembered, now, how Joaquin had died – a supposed 'intellectual dispute' in a bar in Trost. He remembered how uncharacteristic it'd sounded at the time. He remembered now, too, what they'd said about the other sons – the Garrison soldiers Valentin and Alejandro found dead at the bottom of Wall Rose with their gear abandoned at the top and canteens of alcohol in their hands, despite neither drinking; the MP Rafael found murdered in one of the safest streets in Mitras with no witnesses and without having discharged his rifle.

"You don't look so good," Miranda said, and he looked up to see her approaching his desk. Her arms were folded across her high-collared blouse. She was about a head shorter than him but her stare was intense. "Care to share?"

He wasn't sure how to begin, or whether to begin at all. He trusted Miranda – they'd worked together for a few years now – but he didn't like indulging in half-thoughts. "Do you…suppose there could have been any reason for the Carellos to…"

Miranda blinked at him; the corner of her mouth twitched and made the apple of her cheek more prominent. He was glad in this moment that she usually found him amusing and was willing to suffer the exasperation of it – for some reason her response to his nebulous idea seemed important. "To be persecuted?" she finished for him. "Is that what you're asking?"

"Yes."

Her smile dropped again as she examined him. "Oh. You're serious." She took in a deep breath and gave it more consideration; she perched on what little room remained on his desk. "I don't know much about the family but it does seem…odd."

"You like that word."

"Well, it's accurate. Every time I hear about them – which is more frequent than you'd expect; odd in of itself – there's usually something strange to follow right behind. And now, out of the blue, some guy is asking me if there's any joining the military, when to my knowledge we haven't seen any since the sons were picked off."

"'Picked off' – that's my thought exactly, now that I remember," Shadis admitted reluctantly.

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, seeming to form the same thought but not wanting to say it. Eventually Miranda broke it with a more innocent, "What's the recruit's name?" She pulled out the clipboard of rosters and found where he'd left off.

"Mercedes. The mother of the Carello sons – that were picked off, for whatever reason, by who knows who – is her grandmother. And they seem to be in Klorva now rather than outside the Walls."

Again, a moment of silence.

"You say you didn't recognize the soldier who brought you the rosters?"

"No. And I suppose there could have been some truth to his inquiry, but…"

"Odd that we didn't hear about Julia Carello being back, even if she is all the way in Klorva, or that there's a Carello child running around. Odd that we'd just happen to run into a 'friend' of theirs just as the rosters are published."

It was Miranda's turn to voice a half-thought. "You don't suppose…they – whoever 'they' are – are looking to make sure…"

"That there aren't any stray Carellos still alive? It's possible. It's always possible. We work for an agency that used the title of 'reclamation mission' to disguise a method of emergency population control," Shadis said lowly, and felt the pain of the knowledge like a hot coal in his gut.

"But we don't know _why_ , Keith," Miranda whispered, dropping all pretenses of hesitancy. He was surprised by her buying in to this so easily, but then he supposed he was also surprised at himself for buying in so easily too. "Or even if this is something we should get involved in. It's not our job. We're here to train the new little fuckers and that's it."

"You say that, but…" Shadis looked down at the open face of the 71st tome, where Joaquin's name stared up at him in turn. "I owe someone. And the least we can do is keep an eye on this girl – niece or daughter or whatever she is. It may turn out to be nothing at all."

Miranda was silent for a good while, processing. She started to close the tomes and re-shelve them, and he helped her. When they were done she stood with her hands on her hips, staring first at the roster and then glancing at the windows and doors of their office without moving her head. Her face was grim.

Then she nodded at the roster, "Best lock that up. Just in case." She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "I guess I'll let you know if I hear anything else and once she gets to me, we'll see if we need do anything else. If someone's looking for Carello children," she cleaned a lens with the hem of her blouse, "then I don't think we've seen the last of them."

* * *

 **A Note from the Author:** Those of you familiar with the SnK prequel manga _Before The Fall_ may have recognized part of Miranda's surname, Carlstedt. I have a mini-headcanon that Maria Carlstedt had a daughter named Miranda who eventually became a Head Instructor like Shadis.

On a different note, this (somewhat longer) drabble is meant to serve as a small insight into why, in The Jaguar, Mercedes was 'borrowed' from the Western Division, the idea being that every Thursday and Friday a bogus 'inspection' would occur and Miranda and Shadis agreed to try to keep the inspectors from, at least, putting a face to Mercedes' name for as long as they could by sending Mercedes to another Division.


	8. Moonshine - Connie, Sasha

Characters: Connie, Sasha  
Rating: T  
Genre: Friendship, Romance

* * *

 **Moonshine**

"Hey."

"What."

"Guess what?"

" _What_?"

"Look."

"…That looks like fun."

* * *

Sasha took another swig and passed it to Connie, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt that protruded from her uniform jacket. Really, they'd only intended to have a couple of sips and then she'd return it from where she'd found it secreted away at the top of the storage closet, but things had got out of hand and now they were halfway through the bottle of whatever it was and it seemed too late to turn back now.

 _Go big or go home,_ she thought, looking up at the full moon high and cold above them. At least up here on the roof of the chateau they were less likely to be caught and, their patrol being over, they wouldn't be looked for.

"What – what even is this?" Connie asked for the sixth time in the last hour. She'd discovered over the years that not only didn't he hold his alcohol as well as she did, he had a habit of repeating himself over and over when he got beyond tipsy.

"Warmie-uppie juice," she chuckled. She watched him take a rather large pair of gulps. "Hey, really now. I don't think we're meant to drink it like that."

Connie tipped forward, ending his drink, with a slosh. He squished his face up into that expression that always made her laugh, and extended his pinky finger from where it'd wrapped around the bottle, whining, "Well somebody forgot glasses so – this fancy enough for you? Or," he sprung to his feet and tottered a little on the angled tiles, "could do a bit o'waltz! Like the fancy men!"

Sasha laughed and grabbed at him, pulling at him, "Please don't! You'll fall!"

"Seriously, what is this?" he asked, sitting down in a slump half-on her. He peered at the label. "I can't even read it. It's been scratched off."

"Does it matter?" she said, and her voice must have had more of a drawl than she'd intended because his face dropped and he stared at her. "What?"

"You all right?" Connie abruptly asked.

"Yeah, stupid, I'm fine."

"Are you?"

"Yeah – what've I to be upset about? Why're you asking?"

"You just sounded sad all of a sudden."

"Did I? Sorry." Sasha smiled at him and gently took the bottle.

She tipped her head to one side; the concern on his face was only a little alleviated and what remained gave her an obscure warmth in her belly that wasn't from the alcohol. That's what she liked best about him. He could laugh with her and then if she was sad a minute later, that was okay too. He was _with her_ , in all senses of the term. No one else had ever been like that. She felt very lucky.

She poked one corner of his mouth with her index finger and dragged it upward, forcing a smile.

"I'm confused," he said. He wasn't blinking.

"Well that's not unusual. Why this time?" she secured the bottle in the crook of one leg and poked at his face some more, manipulating it this way and that to her liking.

"So a long time ago, you told me you'd never been kissed." His eyes slid to one side as he thought to himself, "I'm not sure what made me think of that. Thought I'd mention it."

She hummed in place of a response, and her smile faltered a little. After a couple more tugs at the ever-amazing elasticity of his face, she withdrew her hands and they fell into her lap. Her gaze fell too, settling on the little skin tag – 'pixie pokes', her grandma had called them – where his neck met collarbone. She felt him take the bottle from her and heard him drink.

Sasha knew why he'd thought of that, even if he himself didn't, yet. Ever-wanting to be liked and accepted, to not make things awkward, to keep what little she had, she pretended she didn't know and that nothing was made different. Which helped her, too, since she didn't know how she felt exactly. She wouldn't know what to do if Connie discovered his feelings toward her were changing much less acted on them.

Part of her wanted to keep him in the dark as long as possible – until the phase passed, or even forever if needs be – so she didn't have to think about complicated things like that, so she didn't have to face up to how little she knew about relationships and love and…

But the other part kept getting them drunk. Kept prodding. Kept testing the waters, like she was checking to see how he was doing, if he'd figured it out yet. Some masochistic part of her wanted him to. She wasn't brave enough to bring it up.

"Hey."

Her eyes rose again to meet his spring-green ones. "What." There was a pause, and she held her breath with it, prepared to hold it for however long it endured. Each time, this happened – a wait, splitting her into quarters over two possible outcomes: equally invested in and not bothered by either. The end to the wait, the answer, often arrived like a sudden waking from sleep, or a flock of startled birds taking flight.

"Tomorrow – tomorrow I think I'll look for some peaches in that overgrown orchard," he pointed southeast at the messy grove, "if we get a chance. Do you like peaches?"

Part of her sank away again. She shrugged to disguise its leaving. "I don't know."

"I'd like to find out with you." He leant back on his free hand and smiled in satisfaction up at the stars. "I like finding things out with you."

After a moment, she had the strength behind her smile again. "Me too, with you."


	9. Some kind of atonement - Rico, Ian

Rating: M  
Characters: Ian Dietrich, Rico Brzenska, the soldier Ian saved.  
Genre: Angst, 'Off-screen'

* * *

 **"Some kind of atonement, some kind of scar."**

"No one talks about the ones who were saved. Not really."

A fortifying sip of lager.

"They don't talk about the expectations that follow. This… _pervasive_ expectation that you justify why it was that you lived and your hero – their hero – died." Pause. "Heh, listen to me. I've thought about this so much that I'm starting to use words like 'pervasive'. I never touched a book before Trost, and now I keep looking in them, trying to find new ways to talk about how it feels."

An uncomfortable shifting under the first pair of eyes to ever be curious, not judgmental.

"When Ian Dietrich held open that Titan's jaws and pulled me out of its mouth, I didn't believe what was happening. I honestly thought it was just my slide into heaven. I remember his grip being so tight I thought the Titan had already clamped down on my wrist with its teeth – he broke it flinging me out and though it and my other injuries from the fall have healed by now, I wish that one hadn't. It'd be something. Some kind of atonement, some kind of scar.

"How is it…that I don't even have a scar? That I get to go home and do fuck all but drink when I'm on leave – when he died, and could have been our next Garrison Commander? He could have spent his off-time starting a family, or contributing to our defense strategies, or something – anything better than what I am. And sure you can say that I can do better, be better, but I'm not built for it. We're not all built for greatness. Some of us..." he circled a hand to try to pull the word from the air; it fell. "Some of us are just fodder. Why die for the fodder. What did he think he was doing?"

Two long sips that drained his flagon. He wiped the foamy dregs from his lip with the side of his thumb.

"Everyone tells me I should be grateful. I am, but only on paper. How am I supposed to be grateful for my sorry little life? To be grateful that a great man was eaten on my behalf…who would be? It chopped his head off, you know? It just," he rolled his fingers by pressing on them with the opposite palm, "folded him into its mouth and…bit." A cold sweat broke out all over his body. "Now almost every night I have to see his head in my dreams, picked up by Brzenska before she even saw me. She held it and cried. She," he brought his clenched hand up to his forehead and held it there just as she had held Dietrich's head. It was emblazoned in his memory but still he couldn't speak of it. He trembled, but breathed. "I'm too sorry to be grateful."


	10. Apathy - Levi, Petra

Rating: T  
Characters: Levi, Petra  
Genre: Angst, 'Character study'

* * *

 **Apathy**

There's something that happens when you've lost before and go through the same loss again. The first loss lodges in you and over time hollows you out, if you're not careful, so that when the second loss happens, instead of something else being taken from you you're actually being filled up.

I wasn't careful. I'd been hollow ever since Farlan and Isobel were killed. I'd tried not to be – I let myself be loyal, poured my energy into our work, even gained a new squad in time – but there was still that space inside me, I think. Waiting for the second loss. You don't think it'll happen to you but it has to, in a way. I wish I knew why.

Somehow, I never expected it to be Petra. I knew losing members of my squad was a possibility. Hell, even losing all of them at once was something I entertained in the darker nights. But she had never been in my mental image of who I could lose and I don't know what exactly made her an exception – yet she was. And to see her lying there…I remember feeling apathetic to it. I remember thinking to myself, _Here it is, here's the second loss_. And it filled me. I'm not sure how apathy can be a full feeling but there it was. My head felt stuffed with cotton. I couldn't think straight. My throat felt choked and every organ I have was bloated with this strange feeling of being proved right. If you know something's bound to happen, however bad it is, what else can you feel but a sort of grim satisfaction when it _does_ happen? And I'd been so used to being empty for so long that I couldn't stand it – what else could I do but try to empty myself, try to get rid of the apathy and force myself into feeling some kind of rage? But rage, ultimately, is too easy. For me at least.

Their death…her death…didn't feel like unfair treatment to me, either, and I suppose that's the worst of it. I can't claim to have not deserved it. But I don't want to be pitied for thinking I'm doomed to lose everyone I'm close to. While in a way I do think that, pity is a waste of everyone's time.

Petra was the one to teach me that, now that I think about it. We argued about it not long after she enlisted. What was funny is that initially, we both thought we were of opposite opinions but by the time we debated it to death it turned out we believed the same thing all along. There were a couple of occasions where she could have pitied me but she refused to and I loved that about her. I knew she was honest in that. To not have her in my life anymore…I'd be lying if I knew how to describe how it feels, but I know that I am not the same.

I suppose as the months and years go on – if I have many of them left – I'll move past this. I'll learn to buoy myself up without her, though I don't know what will take her place – I don't think anything can. Even when I make the tea the exact same way she did, with the citrus zest in the bottom, it's not the same. It's hard to contemplate how I can ever be the same again if even the tea tastes different because it – like me – hasn't touched her hand.

And the worst of it is: I truly believe things come in threes.

* * *

 **A Note from the Author:** Forgive my rustiness - I've not written from Levi's POV before and nor do I write in first-person usually!


	11. Recruitment - OCs

Rating: T  
Characters: Mercedes, Fhalz, Baena, Oliver [OCs]  
Genre: 'Backstory'

Exploring each Jaguar Squad member's recruitment by Mercedes, told in order of signing up.

* * *

 **Recruitment**

 _Year 851, February – Fhalz_

Fhalz looked down, over the railing separating this mezzanine floor, as the door of The Mason's Arms swung open. He pepped up when he noticed that it was Mercedes – he hadn't expected her to come. Well, to be honest, he hadn't expected anyone to throw him a surprise birthday gathering – however small – much less come to it. Really he was convinced that Charlie, next to him laughing at a rather flat joke of Erkel's, just wanted an excuse to drink.

Mercedes was a relief. He hadn't seen much of her since the funerals after the Battle of Trost, even after her transfer back to the Garrison a few months ago, and he wasn't sure whether it was this or something she'd gone through while she was away that made her look different. She was more cautious in her movements despite her attempt at a lukewarm smile at those around her. She scanned the room and when she spotted them, he waved. She smiled more strongly, and began to sidle her way through the crowd to the stairs.

"Oi-up," Erkel, across from him, said. "Who's that?"

He was hesitant to use the word at first, but not for the reason he suspected Erkel thought. "A friend, from my training days in the Western Division."

"Where you been hiding a ' _friend'_ like _that_ , Lathan?" Charlie chimed in. He was craning his neck to see over or around the occupants of the next table to the stairs. "I thought we were your only friends?"

"I didn't have a choice with you two," Fhalz grumbled. "Our mothers were friends. And I haven't been 'hiding' her – we've been on different rotations ever since she got back from the Scouting Legion."

"Seriously? The Recon Corps?"

"Will you shut up?" Fhalz hissed at Charlie.

A moment later Mercedes showed up at the table. "Happy Birthday, Fhalz. Thanks for the invitation," she grinned, and passed him a narrow rectangular box tied closed with twine. Glancing at Erkel, she nodded at the one empty chair and drawled, "This seat taken?"

Mercedes was sitting down even before Erkel dumbly shook his head.

Fhalz glanced between his two childhood friends with a mixture of amusement and annoyance that they'd fallen atypically quiet in her presence. He focused on the present in his hand instead. "Thanks for this – you shouldn't have!" He tugged at the knot in the twine.

"Oh please, it's your birthday," she waved a hand at him.

While he wrestled with the knot, Fhalz jerked his chin to indicate the other two young men, "'Cee, this is Erkel and this is Charlie – childhood friends of mine. Charlie was the one to suggest the night out. Guys, this is Mercedes." The knot released at the same time as their voices, and he lifted the lid from the box. On a bed of cotton was a polished wood and gold fountain pen, underneath which was a matching monogrammed bookmark; his mouth twitched in appreciation of the thought she'd obviously put into it, but he wouldn't smile at it in front of the guys and indeed, angled it away from them so they wouldn't see. "This is great – thank you!" The lid slipped back on with a satisfying shush. He waggled it at her and smiled, placing it beside his beer. "You know me."

"I do," she returned, and he knew she understood. She leaned forward on one elbow – a little conspiratorially, in fact – and a corner of her mouth rose in a smirk. The luxurious pile of her hair tumbled over her shoulder and the smell of plums wafted over the table, momentarily disguising the smell of their drinks. "I have to confess, though. It's actually a little bit of a bribe. I need you."

He knew she deliberately made that last sentence suggestive to mess with the other two, and it reminded him of watching her charm her way around the Western trainee barracks and finding the same admittedly haughty amusement in how easy people were to manipulate. Yet he resisted laughing inwardly with her, this time. These were his friends, after all – dense as Erkel was and coarse as Charlie was – and he felt a brief urge to defend them.

Charlie and Erkel were also leaning forward. "Do you need anyone else?" Erkel practically drooled.

But then Fhalz watched them a moment more, watched the rather pathetic way they obliviously and shallowly hung on to Mercedes' briefest of pauses before her answer like it was a long drink and they were the parched hopefuls. Their heads even tilted down with hers as she dipped it to one side and said, "Sorry, this is exclusive."

He wasn't grateful to her. He was what he was – weedy, glasses-wearing, a bookworm, unlikeable really – and she was what she was – powerful, captivating, popular – but he'd never seen their friendship as anything but equal. She wasn't humoring him, and he wasn't using her. He realized that now, even if he couldn't explain why. Moreover, he felt willing to barter that whatever she was going to ask of him tonight, it marked a new chapter in his life and Erkel and Charlie weren't – couldn't – be along for the ride. And he wasn't sorry about that.

"What is it?" he asked.

Mercedes caught his eye and grinned. "I've been given permission to pick my own squad." It was the first time he'd seen the good pride in her eyes since before Trost. They twinkled expectantly in the lamplight, waiting for him to answer the unspoken question. He knew. But he wanted her to say it.

After a moment of excited staring, he chuckled and said, "Just ask me, 'Cee. That's all you have to do."

* * *

 _Year 851, April – Oliver_

Oliver knew why they always made him be the one to do the dirty work – refilling the grease barrels, reloading ammunition supplies to go up to the Wall , lugging them all out to the waiting horse-drawn cart – rain or shine. It was a combination of things, really, he reflected as he trudged up into the rain from the supply basement beneath the Karanese Garrison HQ. He blinked the heavy droplets out of his eyes as he glanced up at the ash-colored sky.

The first reason was that the leader of the default squad he'd been assigned to after graduation was not only an ass, but feeble; he didn't have the stomach to stand up for them and it seemed that all the other members – and Oliver included himself – weren't much better in the confidence department. However, the other four of them _were_ very good at eventually piling it all on Oliver and slacking off. Even now, he'd watched one by one as they'd slunk off into the curtains of rain, their whines and grumbles becoming lost and pounded into the mud underfoot. He'd grown used to it.

Oliver traced the path of half-buried stray cobbles he'd determined for himself to better avoid slipping. He angled the heavy crate of cannonballs he carried so he could see them if he squinted. The trickle of cold water down the back of his neck made him shudder and he readjusted his grip. Mud squelched underfoot and he figured his next task would be relaying the brick that'd sunk over time in this area.

However, the second reason was even more personal. Despite his intimidating size it was common knowledge by this point that he was very young – if not the youngest – and they liked to take advantage of that. Collectively, the mud here was likely older than he was. He also was fully aware of how much he stood out, despite his mother's encouraging words to the contrary. They didn't fully know what to do with him, it seemed. Gunpowder blended with his skin and this seemed to negate everything he'd accomplished at the Battle of Trost, to the point that he wondered if it'd really happened. But then he remembered the pain he'd blocked out – the pain of watching his squad be ripped to pieces.

He set the crate down gently on the cart and shoved it, hard, farther back. The cart noticeably rocked and groaned. Oliver rolled his shoulders and took a brief breather to look around, and it was then that his eyes alighted on a group of three under the covered porch that led from the stables to the barracks. One of the individuals was his next-tier supervisor, but the other two – a young man and woman around his age, and both rather short – he didn't recognize. The woman held a clipboard and he could tell by the way his supervisor gestured in his direction that they were talking about him.

Oliver frowned, and after another moment wondered if he should go to them, since they didn't seem inclined to come out in the rain. His supervisor raised and dropped a hand defeatedly, and the woman passed the clipboard to her companion. Oliver made a couple of steps in their direction but to his surprise, the woman held up a hand and stepped off the porch into the flooded yard. For some reason the way the canopy of shadows drew up and back from her, replaced by the gray light, seemed to him as though she'd opened an umbrella and the rain no longer existed.

Her smile was lopsided, like she knew something he didn't. At first water only gathered on top of her thick dark hair, which was cropped short on the right half of her skull and glossy like paint; the rust-colored shirt she wore under her Garrison uniform jacket complimented the cinnamon color of her skin. She didn't walk so much as _course_ her way to him.

She stopped in front of him and tilted her chin in order to look him in the eye, but seemed satisfied rather than intimidated. "I'm Mercedes Carello," she said, and held out her hand.

He took it, not knowing what else to do, and met a firm grip. "Oliver Ungabwe," he replied in kind, and in contrast to the sinuous vowels of her name his own felt to him like ugly clots of blood or phlegm falling from his mouth. He couldn't stop the feeling of having dirtied her by touching her and involuntarily his chest and shoulders guiltily caved, and he quickly withdrew his hand.

"I know," she said with a relaxed blink and placed her hands behind her back. "I've been looking for you."

He tried to find the maliciousness in her eyes that he was so familiar with seeing in others, but couldn't pick it out. Oliver was nonetheless skeptical as he replied, "Why's that?"

Mercedes' smile grew into a confident, warm smirk and she shifted feet and folded her arms. "Because I think, to someone who single-handedly felled two Titans even as his squad was dying, I have a better offer than another morning as an upright pack mule."

Oliver felt something in him quake and he couldn't blame it on more rain down his collar. The rushing of the water into the drains nearby tried to manifest into the screams of his friends.

"I've been given permission to form a squad," Mercedes said gently, "and I'd like you to be on it. I want to give you the opportunities someone of your caliber deserves."

"Why?" he couldn't help asking. He looked away from her. His hand drifted to the edge of the cart and ran along it, feeling the splinters as a kind of punishment for the hope that'd sprung in his chest. He liked the _way_ she spoke – it reached an arm around his shoulders and promised better days even moreso than _what_ she spoke _of_. He'd never heard anyone speak like that before. It was like honey.

"Why don't you come with us and find out?" When he returned his gaze to her he must have looked surprised, because she added with a slight chuckle, "What've you got to lose?"

Oliver regarded the tiny woman a little longer. Could she truly offer him a better life? It seemed almost too good to be true, but he couldn't find any trace of ill-will or dishonesty in her words or expression and he was usually very good at picking up on that even if he wasn't so great about sticking up for himself when he sensed it. He couldn't deny she was right – what _did_ he have to lose, even if he still wasn't certain about what she saw in him?

"How about it?" she prompted, and her tone made he feel that he couldn't refuse her. This time, though, it was a good feeling – an accepting of an invitation rather than a surrender.

He finally felt it safe to smile, and held out his hand for them to shake on it. "All right, Boss."

* * *

 _Year 851, July – Baena_

The heat shimmered from the rail tracks atop Wall Rose and from the trunks of the cannons that they guided. It was probably the hottest day of the year and Baena loved it. Even the relentless glare of the bone-colored stone felt like it was recharging her spirits – she couldn't say the same for her team around her helping clean the cannons. She'd taken to singing to keep up their spirits on what was truly a droll task. No one had screamed at her to shut up yet, which was a plus.

"… _and we'll be dancin', dancin'  
_ _our way through the streets  
_ _when the sunshine blooms  
_ _and the lovers meet –_

 _don't tell me bad omens,  
_ _don't tell me goodbye;  
_ _please just dance with me  
_ _while there's still time!"_

Baena took a breath and grunted as she and another Garrison soldier lent their entire body weight against the heavy wooden cannon bracket, pushing it along the track to the spot Captain Woerman wanted. It didn't amount to more than a couple of meters, and really Baena thought he was just fucking with them – but then again she didn't really get marksmanship so perhaps there was a point to it.

The cannon clanked to a stop and the two of them trudged back in the direction of the next one. The other three members of the maintenance crew – mere trainees – were already a little ways ahead, their grease buckets and rags swaying in the wind while their shadows were steady, short blotches of ink under the noonday sun. Baena picked up the end of her ponytail off the back of her neck and waved it a little to cool herself down.

"Hey! Why'd you stop?" one of the trainees called back with a grin.

Baena grinned back. "I need air!" she shouted, and then sighed dramatically for effect. She took a breath and began again with another song:

" _I knew a black cat; his name was Soot –  
_ _he got underfoot, he got underfoot._

 _I knew an orange cat; her name was Honey –  
_ _wha'd'ya know? She hides my money!"_

She whistled a little and eyed the three Garrison figures approaching from the risen elevator in the distance. She didn't recognize them. One was a huge guy, taller than her, while the other guy and the girl were shorter. The girl was in the lead and met the group of trainees, stopping them to speak to them. Baena's eyebrows twitched downward a little but she kept singing.

" _I knew a marbled cat; his name was Buster –"_

"Hey! Baena!" One of the trainees called to her. "Someone here to speak to you!"

Baena stopped in her tracks, her face scrunching up. She shrugged and resumed walking, but at a slower pace and without a song.

Although the two male newcomers hung back, the girl handed her jacket to one of them and picked up her pace, and met her before Baena could reach her destination. Baena could now see that she was maybe a little younger than her, but she was intimidated the girl's muscles. She racked her brain but couldn't think of a reason someone had come to beat her up.

"Baena Cullis?" the girl shaded her eyes and squinted at her.

"Hello!" Baena responded cheerily and rocked on her heels. She found a mischievous enjoyment in how the girl was skeptically looking her over. She was used to it by now.

"Hi," the girl attempted to grin back. "I'm Mercedes Carello, and –"

"Oh what a pretty name!" Baena clapped her hands together. She whispered it to herself and it felt, in her mind, like an animal dancing over dust, though she couldn't be sure yet what animal precisely.

"Err, thank you. I've – not had anyone say that to me before," Mercedes said and took a moment to regain her train of thought. "You probably don't know me from the next soldier, but I came to find you because I've been tasked with gathering a squad."

"How awesome!" Faces and names flew into Baena's brain, "I know several people I can recommend. First you _must_ talk to –"

"I've already settled on who I want," Mercedes interrupted, firmly but kindly. "That's why I'm here talking to you." She smiled implicitly.

Baena took a moment to process this. She put her hands on her hips and looked at the shorter woman out of the corner of her eye. "Wait. What? Seriously? You have no idea who I am!"

"Is that a 'no'?"

"Fuck no!" Baena reeled. "Sounds fun!"

"Really?"

"I have no idea who you are either but yay!" She lurched forward and seized Mercedes in a hug, squeezing out a noise of surprise. "And yes, really! Why the fuck not. It sure beats rotating through canon duty teams forever. Thank you thank you!" She released her. "But I have to warn you, I probably eat too much sugar, I have an unhealthy obsession with flowers, I'm really inexplicably paranoid about the number thirty-three, I snore…"


	12. Something Other Than Flesh - Erwin, OC

Rating: T  
Characters: Erwin, Mercedes [OC]  
Genre: 'Off-Screen', Character Study

* * *

 **Something Other Than Flesh**

Erwin stopped only briefly to peek in the room they'd managed to secure for Julia Carello. The single window was open to the night air, which gently caressed the curtains. The elderly woman, however spritely, was sleeping – the long, hard ride back and the battle that'd ensued immediately after had taken a toll on her, though she'd done her best to deny it. His words to her would have to wait for another time.

Although happy to leave Julia in peace, Erwin found himself reluctant to take the few additional steps down the dark corridor to find her granddaughter. These words would be harder, but more necessary. He'd been delayed in coming here because of the chaos but had to confess to avoiding it, too. He briefly relieved his mind by considering the comparatively trivial fact that, despite both rooms having two beds, grandmother and granddaughter had chosen to sleep separately. His feet were heavy and slow and they reminded the rest of his body how long it'd been since he'd slept, but he forced himself to keep going – just a little longer, just one task longer, just one more person to face.

The glow from the partially-open door beckoned him, even if he figured its occupant never would; she probably couldn't stand the sight of him after everything he'd asked her to do. He stopped in the gap and observed what lay within:

The glow came from a single oil lamp on the table beneath the one window, steady and tall and bright as if holding vigil – Erwin thought of the argument between Mercedes and Kirstein only a few hours ago and the impending expedition and wondered if the lamp was a piece of her soul, waiting. But then he reminded himself that he had no right to wonder about the condition of her soul; he should be concerned with his own.

Mercedes was on the leftmost bed, and if she'd detected his presence she made no indication. Her rifle was propped against the wall at the foot of the bed. She hadn't turned down the bedclothes and hadn't changed her own from the ride in yet, and sat with her left leg folded beside her, her tan skirt hiked up and gathered around her waist, and her right propped on a chair she'd dragged to the bedside. She was in the middle of changing the bandages around her thigh and pooled on the dark floor were the meters' worth of stained rejects; her leg was angled in the light for her fingertips to tenderly trace the angry outlines of the harpoon wound, which he assumed had been cauterized. The lamp's golden light seemed to get lost in it. It was a wreath of roses and Erwin clenched his remaining hand, trying to imagine he held their thorns. No matter what he'd said atop the Ehrmich gate, no matter how well he'd ensured Zackly's imprisonment, he wanted to swallow thorns and embed them in his heart.

 _I did that,_ he thought, staring at the wound, and remembered the agony of losing his arm. No matter how much he logically knew that he hadn't been the one to spear her any more than he'd been the Titan, he felt the same amount of responsibility and pain.

Erwin refocused when he realized Mercedes' hand had stopped; he looked up and realized she'd seen him. Her face was expressionless. He cleared his throat and came inside the room, pushing the door to behind him. She didn't move her leg for him to have the chair and he didn't want her to, although he didn't know how long it would take him to say what he needed to say. He wandered to the window, to the oil lamp, at first, but through them both he could see the tethered rage of what remained of the city and even hear what may have been, a day ago, its dying breaths but were now its moans of realization. He backed away from those senses and sat rigidly on the bed opposite hers as though retreating into himself. She seemed to understand this and didn't speak to attempt to draw him out. His vision was unfocused and as if behind a veil, he saw her rearrange her skirt; he heard her pick up a dish of ointment by her ankle that he hadn't noticed previously and continue salving the burns.

"They have nurses for that," he said vacantly.

"They're busy, and I didn't feel I could ask them to make time for me of all people."

Erwin didn't invalidate her feelings with a contradiction; if he did, he may as well get up and leave for being a hypocrite.

He wondered why she hadn't asked him why he was here, but in a way he was grateful. Maybe because it still gave him an out. _No, I can't leave without saying anything,_ he reaffirmed to himself. His tired, dry eyes refocused. "Mercedes," he began.

"Sir," she acknowledged lowly, impartially, without looking up. Just to make a sound, he realized – perhaps she didn't care at all what he had to say. Perhaps she didn't care about anything anymore.

He clenched his hand tighter and saw his knuckles grow white as a result. He tried to force his short nails into his palm; he didn't like how comforting a thought it was that now he had an empty vessel in front of him in which to pour his thoughts, and he liked even less how she now seemed able to reach into his blood and pull hesitancy from it – an oddly brittle assembly of iron playing havoc with his skeleton – by her presence alone. Or maybe he was projecting.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked, though only half-sure why it was with that he began. He ignored what his brain wanted him to say – it didn't quite feel true.

Still she didn't look up from what she was doing. "The Commander of the Scouting Legion."

"Yes," he agreed, and paused. He thought of the afternoon he'd met her at her grandmother's, the breeze on them both when he'd leaned in and asked her if she'd be prepared to kill the King. "And you went along with my orders despite not being one of my men."

Mercedes said nothing. She re-angled her leg to salve the inside portion of the wound where the harpoon had exited and though she did so without shame, Erwin averted his eyes. The strong scent of antiseptic and aloe reached for him nonetheless.

"I came to tell you I'm sorry," he said.

"For this?" she asked smoothly, without hesitation, and when he looked back at her she gestured at her leg. Her face was pinched and he couldn't quite read if it was in disbelief or pity, or perhaps both. She tugged aside the collar of the red blouse she wore to show an older, star-shaped wound, "Or this?"

He wasn't sure how to respond, though he understood that she was referring to what the wounds represented.

"I don't understand the sentiment," she continued. The dish, mostly empty now, was placed back on the chair.

"Because you didn't think I was capable of it?"

"Because I didn't think it necessary. It wasn't you who did these things and neither was it you who brought me to the situations in which they happened. I went of my own volition, Commander."

After a moment, he asked, "Did you?"

Mercedes regarded him a moment before leaning back on her hands. Her face returned to passivity and her eyes narrowed, as though tired. Then, she said, "Neither of us are strangers to compelling others, but that wasn't what happened, here. Don't beg me to falsely admit to being part of your guilt. That's larger than me."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" Erwin couldn't help but be a little incredulous, but the thought made him nervous because it had a small element of truth.

She shrugged. Her voice was matter of fact as she answered, "What is an apology without the quest for forgiveness that follows?" She paused. "What did you think getting 'forgiveness' from me, however erroneous, would do?"

Erwin considered this a moment. The answer that came to mind was some kind of relief from everything that'd happened since the Breach by Fire, some atonement for all those he'd ordered to their deaths in the name of the higher good. He hadn't wanted to contemplate that no amount of forgiveness would assuage all of it, just as no amount of burn salve would ever completely erase the roses on Mercedes' leg. And she wasn't going to let him lie in that illusion.

"Let me ask _you_ a question, Commander," she said, and didn't continue until he was looking at her. "Do you know who _I_ am?"

He managed a smile, though it was a little sad in light of his revelation, "I think I do," he agreed, catching her meaning.

Her face finally grew more sympathetic, "How is it that you're so used to orchestrating mankind as if it was nothing more than moving chess pieces, with no personal meaning to you whatsoever, and then you turn around and feel the need to be personally responsible for all the evil deeds of each and every person within it?"

"Someone has to be," he said.

She stared at him as though debating whether to contradict him and then, in much the same way as he'd decided not to contradict and thus invalidate her, she said, "So be it, but if you are angry at those that attacked me, or even if you're angry at all those political machinations that meant I had to be involved, or if this is some kind of search for a way to make up for all the difficult decisions you've had to make, it doesn't add up."

Erwin frowned at her.

"I am not the symbol for all those who were martyred or otherwise died for the cause," she surmised. "One person does not equal a hundred, be it in punishment or apology. I refuse to be thought of that way. Whatever you're seeking from me, I don't believe I can give it to you." She too, frowned. "I think at this point I've given you all I can." She looked to her left at the lamp and insodoing, he finally caught a glimpse of defeat in her eyes, hiding there in the corners.

There was silence. Erwin wasn't sure what to feel or think at this point, and he reflected on how Levi had advised him against coming here. Had he known? Erwin looked at the lamp, too. A draught he couldn't feel made the flame waver – had it been their combined sheer force of will?

He breathed in deep. "It's not just me you've given something to, and I don't think you've given everything. My advice is to keep what you can for yourself, otherwise you won't have anything left."

"I think it's a little late for that and even if it wasn't," she said, "holding onto anything hasn't worked out that well for me." Mercedes picked up a large roll of gauze and a wad of cotton pads on the pillow next to her. As she moved into a different angle the light responded by hollowing out her cheeks, shading her eyes, contouring her body into something other than flesh.

He expelled air loudly through his nose and tried to smile. "You're too young to be that cynical."

"I wasn't too young for the rest of it," she said and held the first of the cotton pads against the blisters on her leg. The tail of the gauze was pressed against it and she unwound it a little, laid another pad, unwound it a little more, and repeated the process to form the first layer. Erwin felt the sting of her comment as much as he imagined her skin felt the sting of the material. He absentmindedly watched her wind the gauze around and around her leg.

They sat there in silence for another minute or two, during which Erwin became more conscious of the shadows and light in the room and of the two them as mere beings rather than anyone who held ranks or roles. Everything was becoming more abstract. It was hard to remember why he was here, or why he'd let this young woman, a subordinate, talk to him like that. He'd been feeling too much the past few days and in retrospect, Levi was right – he shouldn't have come here – but now he felt unable to remove himself of his own free will. He felt bare, rapt, and he wasn't sure exactly why though he was fairly certain it wasn't Mercedes' doing.

 _Something about the room…the comfortable silence…_ he tried, but it didn't quite fit.

He watched her face, concentrating, unconcerned by him remaining. Outside there was a woman's scream of grief, and Mercedes did not look up and nor did he look away from her, but he recognized the shift in her expression – the softening of her mouth, the slight rise of her eyebrows – as how he felt his own face try to respond, and so too did he recognize the refusal to be moved by it.

 _And I cannot move. Why is it now that I cannot move?_ He closed his eyes and bowed his head to the single lamp, the single soldier, burning away and unwilling to release him until they had burnt themselves out, as with all shadows that live only by virtue of a flame.


	13. Knowledge - Armin, OC

Rating: K  
Characters: Armin Arlert, Fhalz [OC], mentions of Historia/Christa  
Genre: 'Off-Screen', General

 _This was actually written for Tumblr's Armin Arlert Appreciation Week, Day 2: 'Knowledge'._

* * *

 **Knowledge**

Armin was led by the elderly library staff member down the polished hall of the upper floor of the Mitras library. He'd been to the Special Research Room a couple of times now with Historia's permission and knew where it was, but still Mr Jurgen felt the need to escort him. The wad of keys on his large jailer's keyring jingled with every stilted step, as if their weight unbalanced his old bones.

"I hope you don't mind the presence of another guest, Mr Arlert," Jurgen said. "He arrived this morning."

"Oh," Arlert thought to himself. His first instinct – an old instinct – was to feel unreasonably ruffled by the idea, but he thought again and realized it really wasn't a problem. The room was large, after all; they'd probably barely notice each other. "No, of course not," he added more confidently.

"That's good to hear. I must say, it's not been our normal policy to allow multiple guests in the Special Research Room. He arrived quite unannounced."

Armin doubted many policies would continue under Historia's reign. In fact, he was fairly certain it wouldn't be long before she would institute the opening of public libraries and private ones like this would dissolve completely.

Jurgen stopped outside the only doors on the left-hand side of the hall and opened one for Armin. Armin nodded his thanks and entered, meeting the familiar sight of the opulent room with its jewel-toned, plush seating, rich rugs and deep woods, and the glimmering gilded spines of the books and artifact cases glimmering in the light of the wall of windows opposite. The fireplace to his right was lit with a young blaze that was nonetheless a welcome change in temperature from the chill of the hall. The door clacked shut behind him.

It took Armin a moment to pick out the other occupant of the room since the space itself was so dazzling. A young man about his age with dark red hair stood at the large, heavy table dominating the far left of the room, a chart poised in his pale hands above a pile of several more. He scrutinized him over his glasses.

"Afternoon," Armin called. The cheer in his voice was watered down on its journey through the distance between them. "I wasn't expecting anyone else."

"Afternoon," the other man replied. He placed the chart down on the table and smoothed its curled edges. He seemed concerned about continuing his work but reluctant to speak further.

Armin realized the texts he sought would bring him in uncomfortable proximity, and was slow to advance. He had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity over why the other man was here and what he was looking at. However, as he drew closer he recognized him, even without the uniform.

"Oh! You're Mercedes' squadmate!" he said, and smiled. "I don't think we were ever properly introduced." Armin held out a hand, "Armin Arlert."

He took it and shook firmly. "Fhalz Lathan. I do seem to remember you, and that 'Cee's mentioned you before. Sorry, I've been a bit absorbed and it took me a moment to come out of the fog."

Armin glanced down at the charts between the tall chair backs. As far as he could tell they were blueprints for some kind of gun. "I hope it's not too intrusive of me, but might I ask what you're working on? I honestly didn't think anyone else knew this place existed." And if he was further honest with himself, the idea of having another person potentially with the same research prowess – outside of Hanji, of course – was exciting. He'd had some interesting conversations with Mercedes but she'd not been much of one to share what she knew, even when the few opportunities arose.

Fhalz regarded him for a moment, perhaps weighing the pros and cons of what to reveal. His expression remained a little severe and Armin tried not to take it personally. "'Cee asked me to try to find the plans her grandmother made for the breech-loading rifles." He tapped the papers underhand with the dull end of a fine wood and gold pen. "I think I found them, though they did good to try to scrub out her signature. What about you?"

"Oh, nothing as interesting," Armin recalled. "I've been trying to read all I can on geology and the Walls in an effort to figure out what composes An–" he stopped himself, "the Female Titan's crystal."

Fhalz gestured with his pen at the bookcases behind Armin, "The only geography- or geology- based texts I've found here are behind you. Everything else seems to be either fiction," he pointed the pen at the fireplace on the opposite side of the room, and carried on round the room toward them, "family histories, biology texts, economic legers and census reports."

Armin returned his gaze to him. "Wow – I didn't realize. You've been here before? How much have you read?"

"Once." Fhalz adjusted his glasses. "I haven't had a chance to read much but I've memorized the collection order and a lot of the titles." He scribbled something on a small notepad in a shorthand Armin didn't recognize.

"You…what? You memorized it? Just from one visit?" Armin felt his eyebrows pinch together doubtingly.

Fhalz, however, smiled a little and shrugged. "I have something of an eidetic memory." On seeing the delight in Armin's face, Fhalz bobbed his head side to see and waved a hand, his voice growing modest as he continued, "It works best on things like diagrams, images, layouts –"

"Or plans," Armin realized, his eyes compulsively returning to the blueprints Fhalz had been rifling through. He wasn't sure what this meant. If materials still couldn't be removed or copied from the Special Research Room, then… "'Cee sent you to memorize those."

There was a beat of silence, and then Fhalz smirked and shrugged. "Not explicitly, no. Happy coincidence. She just wanted to know if they were here, mostly." He pushed the cap onto his pen with a click.

Armin wandered the few steps to the bookcase. He regained his composure as his hand found the gilded leather spines like a wall of scales. He smiled, "I should add that I'm not judging. It's an incredible ability. I'm envious." He turned and sought a volume he hadn't yet looked in, pulled it out and up from the shin-high shelf.

"Yeah, well," Fhalz said, "It comes in handy I'll admit. Like anything, though, gotta keep it up. Use it or lose it."

Armin felt the urge to ask more questions, but the weight of the book in his hands reminded him of his purpose for being here. Not to mention he didn't want to make Fhalz uncomfortable. He returned to the table and took a seat a few chairs away, flipping open the book's cover and gently finding the contents page to see if it'd be of any use. In his periphery he saw Fhalz return the topmost blueprint to a large, shallow box, and return his attention to the next one; he traced a bony finger over its lines.

"How many times have you been here?" Fhalz surprised him by asking, not looking up.

He thought for a moment. "This would be my…third time. I don't think it'll ever be enough, though." He looked around the room again, thirsty for all it contained and what it could possibly mean for humanity as a whole. There should be slews of researchers in here right now, he felt, but at the same time he didn't know if too many people should be in here – they might not understand what they were touching; they might not treat it right – however absurd it felt.

"I know that feeling," Fhalz said, and for a second Armin wondered if he'd read his mind.

"But you could memorize all of this, given a little more time."

Fhalz hummed to himself. He paused and looked around, too. "Not really. I suppose it's a mix of blessing and curse that I can't just memorize a book. A page, maybe, but it's not like I can just carry around a library in my head. Sometimes I wish I could, though, in case something were to happen to this place or somebody did something stupid."

"That's just what I was thinking," Armin confessed. "I'm desperate for the knowledge in here to be shared, but I'm nervous about it, too."

Fhalz laughed once, coarsely. "At least we can count on only a few of us being interested in the wheat harvests thirty years ago, huh? The rest," he leaned back over the blueprint, "we'll just have to guard."

"The only problem is that what's useful isn't always obvious when it's first documented," Armin reflected. "I'm a good example. Who knew that a book of geology might be a clue, a hundred years later, to releasing a Titan shifter and thereby getting more information?"

Fhalz looked up. "Huh," he said to himself. His dark blue eyes slid to one side. "Yeah, you're right. I guess that's why they kept so much stuff in here – I guess that's why a lot of books were banned."

Armin thought of the book belonging to his grandparents that gave him a taste of the outside world. "You keep a population ignorant," he began.

"You keep it under control," Fhalz finished. They smiled at each other in a sad sort of camaraderie. "And it isn't our call as to what gets publicized – what becomes common knowledge. Even less in our control is what the public then do with that information. I hope the Queen you put on the throne is wise about that."

"I hope so, too."


	14. Flamme - Armin, Eren

Done for a French word prompt on Tumblr, much like Fleur.

Rating: T  
Characters: Armin Arlert, Eren Jaeger  
Genre: 'Backstory', Friendship, 'Angst'

* * *

Flamme

"Here, you try," Armin insisted and shoved his grandfather's magnifying glass at Eren. Once it was out of his hands he went back to fiddling with the leaf he'd only semi-successfully burnt a hole through; he held it up to his eye and watched his friend through the brown-edged pinhole he'd created.

The wonder and excitement on Eren's face turned first into a squint of concentration as he angled the glass in the sun over the pale green leaf pinned down unnecessarily heavily by his splayed thumb and forefinger. He had trouble focusing the beam of light and, judging by the increasingly quick back-and-forth wavering of the glass, he was getting frustrated. Armin glanced at Eren's face, which was developing a snarl. He debated whether to intervene.

Eren caught his eye. His hand dropped and the ebony handle of the magnifier tapped on the warm stone of the rood terrace. "This isn't working. My leaf is stupid." Armin opened his mouth to object but Eren was already shuffling on his knees to where an old bucket sat against the door to downstairs. "Imma try an' get the spider!"

Armin's expression saddened as he watched his friend position the glass above the spider sitting in the center of its sail-shaped web. "Eren…"

"Ssh, you'll scare it!"

Even from here by virtue of the magnifier Armin could see the spider's striped legs in great detail; Eren finally found the right angle and the yellow of its back became articulated gold. He could see its mandibles working thoughtfully, the eyes no bigger than pinheads gleaming in the light. Staring – at Eren, its attacker, or Armin, its observer?

Eren adjusted the angle a little more and the beam became a dot on the spider's back. One of its legs twitched and Eren hissed.

"Eren," Armin began, sadly.

Eren hissed louder.

A tiny tendril of steam, easily mistakable for a thread of silk, began to waft off the spider's back.

"Eren, don't." Armin reached out and jerked Eren's arm at the same time that the spider scampered away into the shadow of the bucket.

Eren whirled on him, the balls of his feet grinding tiny pebbles beneath them. "Hey! I had it!"

"But you were going to kill it!"

"So? How's that any different from you keeping bugs in jars?"

Armin slumped a little, frowning, "I put air holes in the tops."

"They don't need just air," Eren said. He sat back, his arms behind him, and looked out into the distance where Wall Maria rose to nearly touch the clouds. "They're still in a jar."

* * *

 _I didn't save that spider,_ Armin realized. _It was going to save itself – maybe Eren knew that. But I still put all those bugs in the jars and kept them there on the windowsill. They suffocated even with the air holes. Their entire life was under a magnifying glass with no escape._

Eren and Mikasa's cries for him to regroup with the others rang dully on his ears and the warmth of that summer afternoon faded into the rain and gray mud around him. He gently let the new recruit's head rest on the ground and closed her unseeing eyes, leaving two stripes of mud through her eyebrows. The warmth of the blood so recently coughed up through her lips also began to chill as it ran into her wet blonde hair. What was it she'd said, before they set out?

" _'I'm so tired of being trapped. I want my death to be in my own hands,'_ " he remembered. Hooves thundered behind him and he stood, looking around him at what remained of the squad to which he'd belonged. So many insects pounded into the earth.

"Regroup, Arlert!" someone else nearby called, and his body was moving for him, getting back on his horse, that horse's body moving for him, getting back into the formation, that formation moving for him, coursing like a dark flame across the landscape.


	15. Chant - Mikasa, Sasha

Another French word prompt, like Fleur and Flamme, for Tumblr.

Rating: K  
Characters: Mikasa, Sasha  
Genre: Friendship, 'Backstory'

* * *

Chant

Sasha turned her head to look at her over the arm folded behind her head. "So what's the earliest thing _you_ can remember?"

The broad smile – an unexpectedly welcome stretch of her face that Mikasa hadn't felt in what seemed like an age – relaxed, though she still felt the warmth of it throughout her body. It helped her think, like a cup of coffee in the morning, and was equally as rare. She resettled, crossing one ankle over another. Above them the cool breeze managed to stir the clouds into smoke drifting in front of the crescent moon; behind them somewhere the boys were teasing one another loudly, but not loud enough to infringe on the peace she and Sasha had sought for themselves.

"I think I told you that my family lived away from everyone else for much of…well, before things changed," her throat constricted a little and she pulled at her scarf to make it looser.

"I remember," Sasha said, warmly. It was quick and encouraging – just a sound to fill the void that would otherwise let in unpleasant memories – and Mikasa was grateful for it.

"Well, what I remember is more of a sound than anything else."

"Really?"

Mikasa nodded, and the grass rustled under her hair and wove into it. "We must have ventured to a town or something, because there was no other way I could have heard what I heard with just the three of us in our house," she explained. She smiled again at the memory. "I couldn't have been older than three. I remember…singing. Not me, and not my parents I don't think. We must have been in a church. Nothing complicated, just a group of voices chanting. It was beautiful."

"I bet. Do you know what they were saying?"

"No – I didn't recognize the words. Who knows. Does it matter?"

"Not a bit. How about how it went? Remember that?" Sasha rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. Mikasa glanced at her and found her eyes sparkling – she could always count on her to be interested in what she thought were the silly little things. She made them seem like big things, like she was still something other than a soldier.

"A little," she said, looking away.

"I want to hear it! Can you hum it for me?"

Sasha's candidness was compelling in its own right and always trumped any shyness Mikasa had about sharing these more personal things. It was hard to have any kind of suspicion in the light of so genuine an interest. She cared, and care deserved its own rewards.

Mikasa thought back to the memory, what little she could grasp of it other than a feeling of closeness and reverence. A type of love, even. Warmth swelled in her chest and manifested the sounds on her behalf, and they mulled a little in her throat on the first note that she could recall until they were confident enough to proceed. She had only hummed it a few times to herself when no one else was around, audibly, but inaudibly…the chant had been everywhere throughout her life and she felt as though it'd carry her into the rest of it. She felt it more than heard it, in the clouds overhead, the bodies of horses she'd ridden, the rise and fall of the land, even the streets of Shiganshina mapped the notes and birds picked it up from the ground to build it into their nests. The chant was her dowry and her strength, her compass and her shelter.

The note trailed off. She stared at the sky as if the sounds would fall to earth again like a handful of tossed leaves, or snow. Nothing descended – how wonderful that was. How wonderful singing was, in that sense.

"That's beautiful," Sasha said, breaking her from her reverie. "I never heard anything like that where I grew up."

Mikasa frowned. "Really?" The idea made her sad.

"Oh!" she waved a hand. "I didn't mean it like that – we just had different kinds of songs, I guess. No chants. Just ditties, nursery rhymes, that kind of thing. Come to think of it, there was a lot of little bits and pieces of songs – I guess I just never wanted to hear it. No one sounded that good," she chuckled and kicked her feet behind her.

Mikasa reflected on this – how silent the household had always been except for that one journey to the chant. And then…well, Carla used to hum, in a pleasantly disjointed sort of way. And then…then there had been no songs.

After a moment, though, the memory warmed her again and the sadness dissipated. She said, "I want to sing it to my children one day."


	16. Those Who Remain - OCs

Rating: T (for language)  
Characters: Mercedes, Fhalz, Miranda Carlstedt-Gaus [OCs]  
Genre: 'Backstory'

* * *

 **Those Who Remain**

The weeding-out of the unfit cadets was more depressing than Mercedes thought it would be, even with Chief Instructor Miranda 'Tough-Love' Carlstedt-Gaus. Mercedes had to admire the deft way she first broke the harsh news without batting an eye, offered comfort and encouragement where needed, and returned to professionalism by the time the wagons rolled up to the gate of the Western Division Trainees' grounds. Carlstedt-Gaus continued to have them by the balls even when they were leaving and likely to never see her again – Mercedes could only hope to have that kind of influence one day.

Carlstedt-Gaus had made everyone line up alphabetically either side of the dirt and gravel road that led from the base of the plateau to the bare-bones gate; those who were leaving were in plainclothes and had their drawstring bags with them, having turned in their uniforms and gear the night before. Mercedes scanned the ranks, noticing how those still in uniform already seemed older while those not seemed like the fifteen to sixteen year-olds they were, if not younger. Although the calling-out of those who'd failed had been public, it'd been hard to take in all of the names and Carlstedt-Gaus ran such a tight ship that teasing or even lingering on the subject had been uncommon. Nonetheless, Mercedes was surprised by some who were leaving and some who were staying.

For example, directly across from her – both of them were on the front lines either side of the road – was the weedy pale boy about her height, with glasses and dark red hair. She couldn't quite remember his name, but she did remember that he'd arrived with a couple of friends and hadn't seemed to acquire any more after he got here. He was still in uniform – he was staying – and she reasoned that maybe those two friends, despite seeming to have gravitated away into other groups, had helped him out.

 _Well,_ she thought _, this is only the first, en-masse exodus. There'll be smaller ones later. Just because he made the first cut doesn't mean he'll last 'til graduation._

"All right, everyone," Carlstedt-Gaus' voice bled out over the small clearing from where she stood on the small platform over the gate. It had a surprising amount of volume for so small a person. "We're here to say goodbye to some members of our family. Let's hope we all see each other again someday. To those who are leaving us – think of this not as a failure but as a redirection to things better-suited but equally important. You will be feeding us; you will be supporting us; you will be the comfort we seek in the darkest of times and you will be the reason we fight. Never forget that. To those who are staying – do not forget their faces. Do not forget that it is on their shoulders that we are lifted and that makes them no less worthy of praise. We owe them too much for our humble mouths to say." Her voice gained new momentum and volume, "And so! As we part ways, one final salute! To our hearts!" Her right fist struck her chest.

They enthusiastically mimicked her and stood to attention. It was hard not to feel uplifted and some of the cadets were even smiling. After a few moments Carlstedt-Gaus relaxed and they took it as their cue to do the same; the plainclothes cadets – cadets no more, merely citizens – reaffirmed goodbyes made the night before and drifted through those that remained in formation, leaking onto the road and down it, toward their erstwhile Chief Instructor, toward the gate, toward the wagons that waited to carry them away back to their homes and families.

Mercedes only felt a pea-sized amount of envy. Although close to her grandmother and not opposed to her home, she'd spent far too much time with both. Not only had the military been a calling she felt she'd be remiss to ignore, it represented an opportunity to get away, meet people, do something more with herself. She'd been homeschooled and for additional reasons she didn't understand yet, Julia had been reluctant to let her socialize up until now or, at the very least, let others know her full name. It made any in-depth bonding difficult. Although she'd been making up for lost time many of those she'd connected with were now leaving. It was a setback and however much she tried not to take it personally, she felt her stomach sink.

The wagons were almost finished loading; a few cadets had gathered by the gate and the fence to wave them off and Carlstedt-Gaus remained on the platform above, arms folded. Everyone else was beginning to disperse or mingle despite the few cold flecks of rain that left you in wonder if someone had spat in your direction. Although Mercedes expected others to gravitate toward her like they often did, today she was left alone and she tried not to feel vulnerable because of it. There was no reason to be, after all. She kicked a stray rock back at the road and stretched her arms above her head.

A glance back at the weedy redhead showed her that his arms had folded and his expression had grown more pensive than usual. His own gaze remained fixed on the gate and his sharp profile was like a blade that warded off anyone nearby.

 _Looks like his buddies are gone, too_ , she realized after scanning the clearing. _How does that work? If they helped him, how come they're the ones who were dismissed?_

He continued to just stand there, unmoving. The rain was growing heavier. She was fairly certain he hadn't blinked and as she wandered onto the road, a little closer, she could see that his eyes were glazed over. His expression was beginning to tip from severity to dismay in a softening of his frown, a relaxing of his jaw, a slight lowering on the shoulders that had almost been bunched up around his ears as though cold.

She heard the _snap_ of the horses' reins and the crunching lurch of the wagons beginning to roll forward. His head turned ever so slightly to follow their progress and it was then that she felt pity beginning to nibble at her.

"Hey," Mercedes said to get his attention.

It took him a moment to turn to look at her and yet another for his face to grow defensive again. He was rather mean-looking, come to think of it, and though it didn't intimidate her it nearly deterred her from wasting her time on someone so apparently negative. However, she recognized in his eyes the same vulnerability she'd felt only a few minutes ago.

"Your friends get dismissed?" she asked, walking a couple of steps nearer and putting a hand on her hip.

His arms folded more tightly across his chest and he scowled. "What's it to you?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," she said. She shrugged. "You just looked like you wished you were on a wagon."

"Bullshit," he spat. "Why the fuck would I want to be dismissed – it's a disgrace. I'd much rather be here where I belong."

Mercedes narrowed her eyes, reconsidering her pity. "Forget I said anything." She turned and walked away, headed back to the zig-zagging path that led up the steep slope to the barracks.

At first she thought it was the rain, but then she realized it was footsteps walking quickly after her – trying to catch up but not wanting to seem like they were trying. Though curious, she wasn't curious enough to slow down.

"I'm Fhalz Lathan," the redhead continued, to her surprise. His voice held an odd note of urgency.

"And?"

He came into her periphery as they started the ascent. "Well, you're Mercedes, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Your friends got dismissed too, huh? That, and I've been watching your work –"

"That's not creepy at all," she interjected to drown how strangely appealing it was to hear him refer to her training as 'work', like it was artistry.

"– and we're pretty equal so far, must mean we were meant to stick together." He said it like a fact. Not a musing, a fact. It was enough for her to slow ever so slightly and let him walk _with_ her instead of behind her. The first hairpin turn of the path was a few meters away. "Only those worthy are staying."

"Does it make you 'worthy' to depend on your friends to make sure you don't fall behind?"

He scoffed. "I was the one lapping _them_ on the track. Nobody helped me. I would've rejected it anyway. That kind of stuff just makes you soft and weak. They knew what they were getting into and they couldn't handle it - it's best they've been sent home."

"Y'know it's saying shit like that that's probably not winning you any _new_ friends, right? You must be the Chief's favorite – so inspiring, so altruistic." Mercedes rolled her eyes, drew ahead again and rounded the curve before him.

"What, and you are?" Fhalz retorted. "Neither of us are here to gratify other people." Again, stated like a fact, not a guess. He was right, of course, but she wouldn't give him that. They walked on for a few more minutes up another leg of the path. At the next turn, he spoke again. "They did leave," he admitted. His voice had become somber and it didn't take much for her to realize it was difficult. "Erkel Meisengrat, Charlie Boxer. I'd known them since we were kids."

"They're not gone forever, you know," she replied, trying to be gentle. She picked her braid up and waved it a little to let air and the cool rain hit the back of her neck.

He hummed and then after a moment, asked, "Yours?"

"What?"

"Your friends."

"Oh." She was genuinely taken aback as it occurred to her that not only did she know a mere couple of first names even after all this time, but she hadn't known any of them before she enlisted. "A lot of them left," she answered noncommittally with a shrug.

He pushed air loudly through his nose, "I guess you're never gonna be the type to have trouble making friends." There was derision in his voice, but it was more of an envy than sarcasm.

"But they weren't anybody I knew well, like you did," she admitted in return. "I didn't know anyone when I got here."

"I guess we're really equal now, then, in that case."

"Don't push your luck, Lathan."

"It's my favorite sport, seems like."

She finally cracked a smile. "You, sport? If the wind up here gets much stronger it might blow you off the slope."

She heard rather than saw his own. "Good thing our line of work prefers you to be quick to fly."

"I guess we'll have to see tomorrow who's faster, huh?"

"I suppose we will," Fhalz agreed.


	17. When It Rains, It Pours - Mikasa, Levi

Rating: T  
Characters: Mikasa, Levi  
Genre: Reflective, 'Off-Screen'

* * *

 **When It Rains, It Pours**

There's an ache in the bones, she knows, and that's why they're both out here, getting as close to the source of the pain as they can without immersing themselves yet again.

The rain was a torrent smashing into the cobbles of the courtyard, and it clattered off the tile roof of the porch over their heads and all around the open-sided blacksmith's shop in which their squad had taken refuge, to the point that it came down in curtains like they were under a waterfall. It created a cool flow of air through the space and was mesmerizing to watch. The Captain had distanced himself from his younger squad, bracing himself against a post with his arms folded, and though she knew he welcomed most opportunities like this to take a break from them he had become less and less vocal about it over the last year, less and less insistent, less and less farther away. It was this that made her feel safe in joining him.

Mikasa perched on an anvil nearby, welcoming the slight mist that managed to reach her under here. Levi didn't appear to notice her or if he did, he gave no sign. Although briefly wondering what he was thinking about, it didn't take long for her own thoughts to take over and for her to realize, with an odd sort of certainty, that she probably knew. Her hands laced in her lap and her shoulders slumped a little, her gaze unfocusing. The roar of the rain drowned out the sounds of the rest of the squad behind her.

It'd been raining that day in Trost – the day she thought she'd lost Eren, the day she'd nearly let herself die and her body had reminded her of the preciousness of living. Now that she'd thought about it, it'd been raining, too, on the day she took up the small blade and killed for him. Sometimes it felt like her hands still burned like they did all those years ago and she wanted to plunge them into the downpour beyond. Something bad, something life-altering, always seemed to happen – to her or someone close to her – when it rained.

 _How could it have known that the Captain and I would share that day, become close, before we'd even met?_ she wondered.

It'd only been a few months ago that he'd shared his thoughts on their shared heritage, extrapolated – in private, of course – on his theory of their 'awakening' and even gone on to tell her that his followed the loss of his friends, Farlan and Isobel, because of a choice he'd made. They'd even worked out that the two events – her first kill, and his slaughter of the Titan that'd killed them – had occurred around the same time, if not on the same day. He'd commented about the rain, too, and that more than anything had told Mikasa that they shared some kind of tie even if they didn't fully understand it yet.

She'd carried that conversation with her like a clue, or a talisman. She'd kept it secret from everyone and intended to keep it until the day she died if necessary. They'd never spoken of it again, though sometimes she wished they would. It was a hot coal held in her mouth, pieces of which she could only expel in speaking. And if not that, then she wanted to go out into the courtyard and open her mouth to the deluge and drown it for good, wash it out of her memory. If the rain represented more pain, then maybe plunging into it would be the only way to come out the other side.

Mikasa risked a glance to her left at him. _Is that what he wants, to? Just to be rid of it? The rain nearly helped me forget myself in Trost._ She processed this. _But then, if we were to forget those days we were awoken, what would remain of us? He and I are nothing but skeletons if we don't surround ourselves with blood and carved flesh._

"Can barely see through this shit," Levi muttered. He must have sensed her eyes on him.

"No," she replied quietly, so quietly it was almost lost in the din. "But it'll pass. It always does."


	18. said through your teeth - Jean, OC

Rating: T (for adult language)  
Genre: 'Backstory', Drama  
Characters: Jean, Mercedes [OC], Sasha, Armin, mentions of Marco

Written to follow Chapter 9 of The Jaguar; Tumblr-based dialogue prompt.

* * *

" **Things you said through your teeth"  
** _Jean/Cee_

Jean looked up from drying that morning's dishes as Armin and Mercedes entered the kitchen. They'd cleaned up from their night before and seemed as refreshed as a few hours' sleep could allow them to be. He was reminded of his own tiredness, having been throttled by a nightmare and then not allowed to go back to bed, and immediately resented their rest.

"I don't suppose there's anything left, is there?" Armin said, scanning the tables and sideboard for what might have remained of breakfast.

"I think we managed to keep some of the hashbrowns from Sasha," Jean grumbled, nodding to the stove and the pans they hadn't got to yet.

"Hey!" Sasha, beside him, objected. "That was _one time_ with a potato. I'm not hungry every waking minute, you know."

"But when you are, everyone sure as hell knows about it," Jean said.

Sasha harrumphed and poured suds out of a pitcher into the deep farmhouse sink. "Hey 'Cee," she greeted cheerily.

Jean eyed Mercedes as she and Armin wandered toward the cold stove, scowling at her. He took the pitcher Sasha handed to him and began to dry it. "I certainly hope you made up the bed you stole," he grumbled into the room.

"Childish and crabby as always, I see," Mercedes said, recognizing the comment as meant for her. "I didn't know it was yours but yes, it's made."

He moved to place the dry pitcher on the table with the other clean dishes. "At least the Garrison has that bit of discipline, I guess," he quipped.

"That's not very fair, Jean," Armin said quietly, but it was Mercedes' slow pacing back in his direction that made him look up.

Her eyes were narrowed at him and she'd pulled her shoulders back as though puffing herself up a bit. She was two or three inches shorter than him but somehow seemed to succeed in taking up more space metaphorically rather than physically, and he remembered how she could be in a fight. She came to a standstill in front of him with her hands on her hips. She tilted her head back and pulled her lips into her mouth as she looked him over, unamused. "Well it's your lucky day - I'm one of you, now."

Sasha and Armin had fallen quiet and motionless, and into the silence Jean said, "And why is that, exactly? Huh? How is it that you can just _show up_ like this?" he waved an arm and she swayed a fraction to avoid it. "Most people when they pick an allegiance stick to it."

She looked at him coolly, blinking. "I had things I needed to do first."

Jean squinted at her and shook his head a little. "So what, the whole military structure has to cater to your whims? Who said you're so special?"

Mercedes shrugged. "I'm not."

He stepped out of her space - and immediately resented that he'd conceded it was _her_ space - to avoid strangling her. He stepped over to the sink and leaned around Sasha to pull out the last pitcher from beneath the soapy water and dry it. "You sure as hell act like it." He rubbed at the pewter viciously with the towel. "I'm so sick of you. We were meant to leave you behind and here you are following us like some stray."

There was a beat of a pause, and Jean was about to regret his wording when Mercedes said, "Is that meant to insult me, Kirstein? I thought a year'd give you more practice in that department. But quite frankly," her voice rose a fraction, "I don't give a shit what you think about why I'm here."

He looked up. Without knowing why, Jean said, "And when will you give a shit about what people think? When someone's dead because of you?" He thought suddenly of Marco. "Whose blood was on you last night?"

"Jean that was from my horse - why are you so angry?" he distantly heard Armin say.

Mercedes was looking at him levelly, her stare piercing through him. "Not who you were thinking," she said, as though reading his mind.

He felt her lock of hair in his breast pocket. He felt the heat of the flame of the candle he'd tipped to one side to drip wax on the lock's end to bind it; the same heat he'd felt waking that night from the dream of her walking into Marco's funeral pyre. Armin was right - he felt almost impossibly angry, like another pyre had been lit inside him, and he wasn't sure why.

"Now, if you're done -"

Jean threw the pitcher down with a loud clatter, making Sasha and Armin jump. "Why the fuck are you here?" he yelled. "We don't need Garrison rejects like you." He was stepping back into her space, he was clenching his fists. "They may be easy for you to wrap around your little finger but you're not going to have that luck with us!" he shouted into her face.

"I'm not going anywhere," she growled back up into his own.

Without thinking, he was grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling. Mercedes reacted immediately - as if something had been pent up inside of her, too - and seized his crotch. They both ended up partly doubled-over, yelping a little and snarling at one another.

"What the shit?" Jean whinged.

"You wanna fight dirty well here you go!" Mercedes retorted and squeezed. Even the tiny movement sent a flare of pain up his spine and he pulled harder at her scalp, nearly tipping her.

"Whoa! Guys! Stop it!" Sasha was beside them a split second later and tried to find the best way of separating them.

"You both need to calm down," Armin tried. He held up his hands in a placatory gesture. "This isn't solving anything and one of the Squad Leaders will hear you. Come on, let go."

Jean gritted his teeth and pushed his face even closer to Mercedes', "You should've cut it all off," he said and waved the handful of glossy ebony between them. The mocking fruity scent he'd smelled that night came back to him.

"You're the one who stopped me," she said through her own teeth. _You invited me here, you invited me in_ , she may as well have said.

Jean's grip loosened, and he looked warily between Armin and Sasha. The intrigued looks on their faces made him flush with embarrassment; he let go of her hair and she released her hold on his crotch, allowing him to step away. "I don't know what you're talking about. Screw this," he said and quickly strode for the door, "I've got patrol."


	19. too many miles - Mrs Kir, OC, Jean

Rating: K+  
Genre: 'Backstory', Romance, Angst, Family  
Characters: Mrs Kirstein, Mercedes [OC], mentions of Jean

From a Tumblr prompt. Written for the interim between Part II of The Burning Titan and Hidden Lions.

* * *

 **"Things you said with too many miles between us"**  
 _Jean/Cee_

They'd sent her to help the relocation effort because they didn't want to deal with her, didn't want to see her - she knew that for a fact. Following the Burning Titan's disappearance for the last time and the rumors that she knew its true identity circling like a maelstrom in the chaos, there weren't many places she could go and not receive lashback. They'd sent her and the rest of Jaguar Squad to Klorva, where a third of Trost's former residents would live while their town was rebuilt - which was just as well, seeing as Mercedes didn't want to be far from Julia, who had not been doing well after the hard ride back.

"Here, I'll take over," Baena said as she tapped her on the shoulder. "Take a break." She smiled.

Mercedes sighed and used her crutch to stand up from her seat behind the housing assignments desk. She brought the crutch under her arm and, keeping her wounded right leg somewhat lifted, hobbled out of Baena's way so she could sit down instead. The line of refugees continued to press forward and Mercedes retreated from their accusing and wary stares. She ducked inside the back annex to the occupied town hall in search of something warm to drink.

It was a small room with little more than a sink, a pair of cabinets, and a chair in the corner facing the broom and mop in the other corner - not even room enough for a table or more than four people. On the counter next to the sink was the coffee Baena kept on making throughout the day using a fire she'd built down the side of the hall. The four of them had been sharing two mugs; Mercedes poured herself one and was grateful for the steam hitting her face, even if it tasted terrible. She sat down heavily and stared at the brick walls around her.

 _The Scouting Legion left yesterday,_ she told herself. _Jean left yesterday._

He hadn't said anything to her following their argument, when Marco disappeared. Hadn't seen her. Hadn't written, or sent word. She hadn't even glimpsed him. Not once. They were only a day out - part of her felt like riding after him, but most of her was crippled with sadness.

"'If it's yours, it's mine'," she mimed to herself, as though the hundredth repetition of her last words to him might make a difference. She knew it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. She sipped the coffee again.

It wasn't like her to dwell - not on a boy, at any rate. A man. She'd always thought pining trivial and useless. She'd always thought should she ever get into a relationship - if she really could consider them having been in one - that if it ended she wouldn't have a problem moving on. Or at least be angry. But she wasn't angry. Why wasn't she angry? Why did she feel nothing but an ache that ate away at her muscles?

But of course, there wasn't just that to think about. There was the night in the infirmary, when Erwin came to talk to her, ask her forgiveness. What they'd said and done. She frowned deeply to herself - what had made sense in the dark no longer did in the day. The past three mornings had subjected her to this realization and it was yet another inner battle for it to not muddy the waters. There was too much to think about. Too much to digest and do and not enough time for any of it. Not enough strength. Not enough heart.

There was a timid knock on the door beside her.

Mercedes rolled her eyes and tipped her head back to let the beginnings of tears sink back where they belonged. "Not now, Baena," she groaned. "Just tell 'em if they don't like it -"

"Mercedes? It's Jean's mother. Can I see you?"

Mercedes nearly dropped the tin mug of coffee. She felt sick. _No, no - this can't be happening. Of all people to be in_ this _refugee line…_ She took a couple of deep breaths, debated whether she could face her.

"Mercedes?"

Mercedes pressed her eyes closed momentarily, and then reached out and opened the door. Mrs Kirstein looked cautiously glad to see her. "Hi Mrs Kirstein," she said tiredly, and tried to smile. "Come in - sorry it's a bit cramped."

"I thought I saw you. I'm sorry to be a bother," she closed the door behind her and stood against the sink. "I was just worried about you."

Mercedes sat up straighter, the selfishness she'd felt only moments ago rapidly falling away. "You shouldn't be worried about me, Mrs Kirstein - you're the one who lost your home," she said quietly and tucked her crutch behind her.

She shrugged with a smile, "It can be rebuilt."

The woman's optimism hurt. "Even so…" Mercedes paused. "I've no right to your worry."

Mrs Kirstein breathed in deep. "You're talking about Jean," she said.

Mercedes looked at her briefly, then couldn't hold her gaze any longer; it dropped to the blue and green plaid fringed shawl that Mrs Kirstein wrapped more tightly around her. She thought about offering her coffee but remembered that she preferred tea - so did she, really. Mercedes set her cup on the counter. She carefully repositioned her bad leg with a grimace as the corner of the chair seat poked the blisters.

"He came to see me," Mrs Kirstein continued cautiously. "He said you'd argued… I take it he didn't heed my advice to see you before he left."

All Mercedes could do was shake her head.

Mrs Kirstein sighed, as though releasing the heavy breath she'd taken in earlier. "You know...just because you've both hit a bump doesn't mean I can't care about you. It's not conditional."

It made Mercedes uncomfortable to realize that hearing Mrs Kirstein talk like this not only made her miss her own mother - the mother Julia could never quite be - but also awkwardly, tentatively want Mrs Kirstein for a mother-in-law. It made the ache she felt for Jean even messier. She didn't trust herself to speak yet.

"As for my son...he's not good at these things. Distances, mostly. Physical and emotional. He wouldn't tell me what he said to you but judging by how upset you both seem to be it wasn't the sort of thing you should leave on. It's not my place to defend him," she said and looked at her hands. "But I hope you know how good you've been for him - I told him if he kept this up he didn't deserve you."

"I'm not much to be deserved, Mrs Kirstein," Mercedes felt compelled to say. She folded her arms. "But you're right in that there's too many miles between us now. Even when he comes back I'm not sure we'll be any closer, after what was said and done."

"You don't know that, dear," Mrs Kirstein said and crouched in front of her. "From what I can tell, you've had miles between you before and you've always come back to each other in the end," she patted her good knee.

Mercedes struggled to keep her emotions under control. She blinked furiously and bit her bottom lip. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Have they assigned you a place to stay yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Then you'll stay with my grandmother and I."


	20. Things you said I wish you hadn't - OC

Rating: K  
Genre: 'Backstory', Friendship, Romance  
Characters: Oliver, Fhalz, Mercedes, Baena [OCs]

Tumblr prompt. Takes place a few months following Oliver and Baena's recruitment (during Mercedes' time as a Garrison soldier following events of The Jaguar, when she's given permission to pick her own squad).

* * *

 **"Things you said I wish you hadn't"**  
 _Pairing of your choice_

"Well, we'll see you later," said Mercedes as she and Baena got up, their gear tapping the mess hall benches.

"Enjoy your chess! Fhalz has been looking for somebody to play with forever," Baena added. The two of them waved as they left for patrol.

Fhalz shrugged to himself where he stood opposite Oliver and shook the box of chess pieces he held in one hand, the folded board in his other. He watched Oliver's smile shift down a notch, but not vanish, and frowned in concern when Oliver craned his neck and leaned back ever so slightly to look out the window behind him when the girls exited the barracks. Baena trotted off one way and Mercedes waited for her, folding her arms.

Still Oliver watched. "Do you think she's cold? Maybe I should -"

"It's not even winter yet," Fhalz said and sat down. He eyed him; Oliver was still looking out the window, so presumably Mercedes was still there. "Don't do it, man," Fhalz warned.

Oliver finally turned back around, a bewildered expression on his face. "Do what?"

Fhalz sighed as he opened the chessboard, aligned it properly between them and began laying out the pieces. He glanced up at him. "You know she's got her eye on somebody else. Plus it'll make shit complicated."

Oliver looked confused. "What d'you...I don't -"

"Ol'."

"Oh - you mean - heh, I don't…" he laughed and waved it off, attempted to help lay out the white pieces. "She's the Boss. I'm not that stupid."

Fhalz laughed sardonically to himself, though he was aware Mercedes had told him before that it often verged on cruel, particularly where Oliver was concerned. When he looked up Oliver was averting his eyes, his shoulders bunched around his ears, and laying out the rest of the pieces on his side - incorrectly, but Fhalz would get to that in a minute. Once the pieces were set and there were no more distractions, Oliver sighed, sat still for a moment, laid his arms on the table in front of him, and then jerked his head down and to one side, "All right."

"All right?" Fhalz repeated, dragging his mug of coffee closer.

"I do like her, a little."

Fhalz grunted and shook his head. "I wish you hadn't said that. I was hoping I was wrong."

"Well you weren't so am I that obvious? And I know it's a bad idea. It'll...it'll go…"

"Hm," Fhalz quirked his eyebrows and sipped his coffee. "I thought you liked guys, anyway?"

Oliver slowly began correcting his piece placement, eyes flitting back and forth between his side and Fhalz's. "I do, but I like girls too." There was quiet for a moment; they both stared at the board. "She likes that Scouting Legion fella, right?" he asked quietly.

Fhalz grunted again. He made the first move; an easy, obvious one to give Oliver a head start.

"Figures."

"Figures?"

"I would've been too lucky. I guess I just felt so happy when she came...when she found me. How she smiled and how she spoke to me like nobody else ever had. Like she really valued me. But yeah - you're right. Bad idea. Real bad, for a lot of reasons."

The sombreness with which Oliver had spoken made Fhalz pay full attention. He frowned, waited a few seconds to be sure he was reading between the lines correctly. "Just two, Ol': because she's our Squad Leader and because you'll get hurt when she doesn't feel the same way. Nothing else. Okay?"

Oliver held his gaze, then looked back at the board. "Okay." He mirrored his move with Fhalz's. "You won't tell her, huh?"

"Absolutely not." Fhalz moved without hesitating. "You trusted me enough to tell me so of course I won't. It'll be just between us." He waited for Oliver to move, then moved again. "And 'Cee does value you. We all do. Just don't confuse it."

"Thanks."


	21. A Rock and a Hard Place - Rico, OC

Rating: T  
Genre: Angst, 'Backstory'  
Characters: Rico, Mercedes [OC], mentions of Ian, Pixis and Woerman

Takes place between The Jaguar and The Burning Titan.

* * *

 **A Rock and a Hard Place**

Here. They'd been standing here, at this particular spot on Wall Rose - they'd stood here the day they'd agreed to guard Eren so he could block the breach; they'd stood here countless times before then, her and Ian. She could remember the color of the sky the day she'd almost told him - lavender and gold. They'd always remind her of him.

Rico breathed in deep. The sky hadn't been that color since the day Ian died; she wouldn't let herself miss it. She wouldn't let herself miss him, either, though that was harder. It was too late to tell him anything so why should stupidity and cowardice be assauged with nostalgia? She was left with a void and she'd force herself to be content with it for the rest of her life.

A cloudy day; a windy day that whipped her hair against her glasses. She strode along the very edge of the Wall and watched the Titans milling around the killing fields. Ever since the Trost reclamation her hatred for them had become much more personal, much more insidious. She barely seemed able to talk or even think about anything else - she felt like her body was merely a vessel for hate, for humanity's mission. Although it hadn't taken the Commanders long to fill the four empty spots in her squad lineup, it certainly wasn't the same and she doubted it'd ever be - sometimes she struggled to recall their names and couldn't find the patience for civility much less pleasantries, and so they often left her alone, as most people did - even her parents wrote less often, and her superiors kept their distance.

So it was with some surprise that she heard a voice calling her name. With a sneer she turned away from the Titans and faced the two figures approaching her, one an Aide from Woerman that she thought too soft and as a result detested, and the second one she didn't recognize: a young woman - younger than she was, likely from the the 104th or 105th if she had to guess - about her height with dark hair in a braid, Garrison uniform and a confident walk. Rico racked her brain trying to determine what this may be about.

 _Oh._ She remembered. _Pixis' wildcard, here for shadowing. What was her name…_

The idea, when it'd come down the line to her, she'd thought pointless - stupid, even. A waste of her time and certainly a test of her patience. But she'd nothing else in her but hate and duty, duty and hate, so she hadn't objected, merely pushed it aside until it manifested. And here it was. Here she was.

The Aide and the new girl stopped in front of her; both saluted but Rico did not return the gesture.

The Aide looked nervously to one side, in the girl's direction but not quite at her, as though for backup. "Squad Leader Brzenska - Commander Pixis asked me to -"

"I know," Rico cut her off, tired already by the few words in that nasally voice. She held out her hand for the file the Aide carried under her arm. "You can go now."

The Aide pouted and barely concealed a hurt glare, but Rico didn't care. The file was handed over and without a salute, the Aide turned and left.

Rico, out of habit, waited for the Aide to be out of earshot and then gave a cursory glance into the first couple of pages of the file, angling it so the wind wouldn't snatch it out of her hands. Mercedes Carello. Recent incoming transfer back from the Scouting Legion per special instruction by Commander Smith; prior position with the Western Detachment of the Garrison. Good statistics. She didn't need to know the rest right now - didn't care to. Rico folded the file shut and tucked it under her arm.

The eyes she met were dark and hard, like clots of dried blood. She was now able to see that Carello had cut the hair on the right side of her head close to her scalp, and almost rolled her eyes. She wanted to immediately resent Carello for something - for her prettiness struck with possibly false bravado, for the youthful pridefulness leaking from her, anything - something more than the inconvenience of being forced to take her on as a protege, but struggled to do so. She was also silent, which didn't give Rico anything to latch onto yet, either; she debated looking back in the file for some kind of hangnail, something to tear the girl down with before they'd even begun. She resisted.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Rico half-grunted.

The slightest quirk of Carello's eyebrows. "Do you want me to?"

Rico paused before retorting - it hadn't been insubordination, exactly, to not include her title at the end of that question, but it certainly gave a new shade of meaning. Like she understood what she was up against. It made her wonder if Carello had been briefed about _her_ in much the same way as they'd attempted to brief Rico about Carello. Still. "Little early for you to be a smartass, isn't it?"

"Apologies, Sir." Carello did not straighten, or change her expression or rather bored tone.

"Impatient with your new assignment already?"

"No. It's only that I didn't think you wanted a timewaster," Carello said.

"Got that right," Rico conceded.

The two of them stood there in silence, Carello settling her gaze on the polite and ready middle-distance of a good soldier, her hands tucked behind her. Rico looked away, this time at Trost, her hometown. Suddenly she wanted to go home. Why that momentary weakness - held at arm's length for so long - was brought up and so vehemently now, of all times, in front of Carello of all people was a mystery. Rico kept her face neutral, turned back to her new subordinate.

"Why'd Erwin send you back?" she asked.

The question seemed to take Carello by surprise, but she too was adept at concealing it. "It wasn't my place to ask."

Rico decided to turn the answer to her advantage rather than express cynicism. "And you'll keep that attitude around me, if you're smart. You're here to shadow me and I'm well aware that Pixis wants you fast-tracked to Elite since we lost so many in the Trost Reclamation, so in order to do that I need you to report to me as your immediate supervisor, do exactly what I tell you and when you're not working, to be listening and watching. I will not waste my time explaining. I will not repeat myself, or go slowly - I presume if Pixis wants you to do this then you're capable of hitting the ground running. Am I wrong?"

"No, Sir."

"Good. Have you moved barracks?"

"Yes, Sir."

Rico took Carello's file in both hands and methodically tapped its spine in her palm. "Then at oh-six-hundred sharp tomorrow morning I expect you to report to this same spot; we'll start by reviewing the guard and maintenance rotations before our weekly meeting with Deputy Commander Woerman. Clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now that's settled, you're dismissed."

"There's nothing you need before then?"

Rico was surprised by the faintest element of a plea in Carello's voice, like she wanted the distraction for some reason. _A workaholic, maybe,_ she thought. "I wasn't thinking of that," she said.

"That's one of the reasons I'm here, I suspect."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Rico paused sourly, but when Carello wasn't going away she said, "Eager to get started already?"

"Why wait? I don't think either of us would benefit from it." Carello managed to sound like she was shrugging with just her voice, and Rico had to admit finding it amusing.

"Perhaps not." She took a deep breath, and though reluctant to leave the seclusion of the Wall for the first time in a while she felt that Ian would have wanted her to, for a change. "Come on, then, rookie," she grumbled. They began walking toward the elevator - Carello matched her swift pace but rather than annoying, it was encouraging. Nevertheless, Rico was determined not to like her.


	22. When It's Over - Reiner, Bertholt, Annie

Rating: T  
Genre: 'Off-Screen', Angst, Friendship, Romance  
Characters: Reiner, Bertholt, Annie

* * *

 **When It's Over**

"Hey, you know why I said it, right?"

Bertholt looked at him, confused. "Said what? A lot was said."

It was a labor already, then, Reiner decided. He was hoping this would be simple, even when he logically knew it could never be. He sat down heavily on the branch next to Bertholt; pine needles shivered and came loose, scattering into the darkness below their feet. "When I told you you'd have to tell Annie how you felt, when all this is over."

"I don't think this is ever going to be over, Reiner," Bertholt said and looked down at his lap, where his hands occupied themselves by picking apart a pinecone scale by scale. The action was ruining his cuticles and shredding his fingertips and the sharp tips were getting under his nails, but he didn't seem to care. Combined with Bertholt's somber tone, this made Reiner feel worse.

Though it was hard to finally do it, he had to. Reiner reached out and stilled Bertholt's hands with one of his own. Bertholt did not look up, but defeatedly dropped the pinecone into the abyss. Reiner withdrew his hand, though he didn't want to.

"How about we keep going like it will be over?" he suggested, trying to maintain some warmth to his voice in the face of Bertholt's fatalism.

"If you say so."

It hurt. To hear him talk like that, to think of how bright and full of life he used to be. It hurt to think that this was inevitable - that they'd be wrecked and that they would come to see that it hadn't been worth it. But what was left? Giving up was not an option, even though to keep going would ruin them even more - impossibly more. And he, Reiner, had to be the one to bring them to the end. He was the only one who could.

"I do say so."

In the long, quiet moments that followed they listened to an owl hoot and then take flight, soaring over their heads on the way down. It felt like everything was down - down there in the pit from which they'd risen. They'd come up here to be safe but in the process, stripped themselves of everything that'd made them anything more than ghosts.

 _Not quite everything,_ Reiner thought. An image of Annie came to mind; one of the few times the three of them had been happy together rather than at unspoken odds - they'd fallen asleep against a wall and she'd rested against him, her legs across Bertholt's lap. That was the night he'd discovered he loved them both, and not just as comrades-in-arms. Deeply, unavoidably. Hard on its heels was the realization that he would do anything to give them a chance at happiness that _endured_ \- do anything so that they might see peace even if he didn't. If he could accomplish that, it would be enough.

"You didn't answer my question," Reiner reminded him.

"I don't have anything to say." Bertholt placed his hands beside him and looked left, away from Reiner. Reiner watched his shoulders rise and fall with an almost unseen sigh.

"Always avoiding," Reiner looked away too, but just for a moment before he was drawn back. He stared at the overgrown lock of dark hair attempting to curl into Bertholt's ear, resisted the temptation to reach out and tuck it aside. He took a deep breath. "And that's precisely why I said it. Contradictory as it may sound, I want you to tell her how you feel because...if you do nothing else for yourself, let it be that."

"I don't see the point," Bertholt said quietly. "Plus, we don't know if she's even -"

Reiner's hand turned Bertholt's head by the jaw to look at him. "Don't say it. Don't." He realized he was gripping too hard, and released him. It was his turn to let his gaze fall into his lap along with his hands. _Annie,_ he thought, with a horrible pain in his gut. He missed her, wanted her, feared for her - the same way he missed and wanted and feared for Bertholt right beside him. He knew he should be staying focused on the mission, that he should think this conversation trivial, but…

"Reiner?"

He refocused. "What else do we have to hold onto, if not each other? They want us to think that we can't have even that when it's all done - maybe we were even trying to convince ourselves of that. But if we let them have that victory then our fight is pointless," he said. "If we don't love, then we're really not human anymore."

Bertholt blinked at him, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. "Hey…" he reached for him - softly, as though through fog.

Though the touch was something he wanted, Reiner recoiled frm it. "If you care for her, and you hold onto it, and you tell her, maybe there's redemption in that - when the end comes, I mean. When all's said and done and we go to meet our maker, after all the wrong we've done, maybe just that shred of love - that stupid, stubborn scrap of it - can...can…" Reiner swallowed the lump in his throat, peered up into the tree canopy and tried to see the sky.

"Atone?"

Reiner opened his mouth, felt the heat of his breath escape and the cooler night air settle in it, like water in a cup. "Yeah." Exhaustion began to pull at him, as though to pull him off the branch into the abyss. For once, he let himself bow under the weight; he tilted to one side, rested his cheek on Bertholt's shoulder. He closed his eyes.

After a moment he heard Bertholt reach his left arm across his body and hold onto Reiner. "If we make it, I'll tell her," he said quietly.

Reiner smiled. "Good," he whispered, laid his little and ring fingers of his left hand over Bertholt's, between them. He felt turn his head and rest his chin on Reiner's crown, keeping watch while Reiner slipped into half-sleep.


	23. Thunder - Jean, OC

Rating: T, for adult language  
Genre: General  
Characters: Jean, Mercedes [OC], brief Eren

Written to take place between Chapters 9 & 10 of The Jaguar.

* * *

 **Thunder**

Jean slowed his horse to a walk as he approached the corral they'd constructed at near the back of the chalet. He wasn't sure where everyone else was, or why they weren't bothered by the fact that the dozen or so bareback horses were trotting rings around it and kicking dirt up into the heavy air. He frowned, as though giving expression to the thunder growling among the bruised clouds - Mercedes, like the insidious golden light that still somehow managed to make its way under the clouds, appeared to be dancing among them. He stopped by the fence, confused; his mare's ears perked up and she raised her snout earnestly.

For the most part she was riding her horse, Sabine - and the fact that that was a logical statement in this scenario made Jean shake his head. "Oi," he barked, but she didn't hear him - or if she did, she ignored him.

Sabine was the only saddled horse and her energy levels reflected that of Mercedes; they led the herd animals in dizzying clockwork around the corral, their hooves echoing the sky, while Mercedes appeared to slip away from and off her saddle, skipping a foot or two along the ground while using the horses to keep herself aloft, or swinging herself around Sabine's neck or pulling herself under her belly and up the other side, her braid dragging through the damp, loose earth. She'd jerk upright in the saddle, grinning to herself, and when she fell off to one side and disappeared into the horseflesh Jean would panic, only to grit his teeth angrily when she reemerged without a scratch. It was almost a mockery, the way she maneuvered on the saddle - astride it then sidesaddle then kneeling then crouching then fucking standing then slipping off it with only a pommel in her hand and an ankle in a stirrup to catch her - he was afraid to shout again in case it distracted her and she fell.

Her joy was the most offensive thing, he realized. Her obliviousness. He wanted to snap at her that the Scouting Legion wasn't a playground. He wanted to shout at her - why should she have any joy? He was the last person he wanted to have any joy, after all the times she'd messed with their graduating class, after how much hurt she could have caused Marco… He wanted her to be in pain, like the rest of them, even though logically he knew she carried a different, as of yet nameless burden.

The horses were scattering, slowing, as though the breeze that'd pushed them over the ground had died. And it had, he realized - Jean watched Mercedes approach him astride Sabine at a leisurely pace, and set his face in its frown as though preparing a defense.

She sat back in the saddle to catch her breath, her hands on Sabine's rump, and guided the horse forward with her legs alone. Her head tilted until it rested on the prominent muscle of one bare shoulder. "Spit it out," she said.

"What?" he grunted.

She regarded him a moment through narrowed eyes, then slowly leaned forward until she had draped herself on Sabine's neck as though to whisper a secret in the horse's ear, her chin on the backs of her hands. The apples of her cheeks were aglow and her skin was both dewey and dusty; little tongues of damp black hair stuck to her temples, the back of her neck. Jean felt warm under his uniform and wished the rain would start but also that it wouldn't - at least not until she put her jacket back on.

"I was just exercising them," she said with a shrug.

Jean snorted in derision. "I doubt that was a chore you were given. Freaking them the fuck out, more like."

Mercedes sat up and actually looked a little offended. "I don't know if you knew this, but Scout horses are bred for this kind of thing. Increased endurance, good handling, nimbleness, not easily frightened…" she held out a hand as another mare walked up and nuzzled into her palm. "This kind of stuff is play for them."

Jean raised an eyebrow, barely resisted rolling his eyes. "Of course I knew all that shit. What makes you such a fucking expert?" He looked up at the stormclouds, so low he felt like he could reach up and touch their undersides.

She blinked. "My family bred horses for the Legion; these are likely all descendants of our purebreds. You?"

Jean didn't have a witty answer for that and it aggravated him. Before he could stop himself he was reverting to something juvenile as he carefully dismounted. His gear clattered with his heavy landing. "Well if you're so familiar with fucking horses why don't you sleep with them," he muttered, opening the corral gate.

"Thought you didn't like me turning up in your bed?" she retorted without missing a beat.

Not only did the humor grind on his nerves - the horse jokes were only just beginning to die down - but it struck him as odd. She typically didn't crack jokes anymore, much less stretch to anything vaguely flirting. It was too like her old self. He chose to blame it on her being still drunk on the exercise-high. "You done?" he asked as he led his horse in and closed the gate behind him.

"I suppose," she said and slid down, her braid beating her back. She began to unstrap Sabine's saddle. Jean watched out of the corner of his eye but couldn't see anything unusual about it that would have helped her do all those maneuvers.

"I'd like to see you try doing all those stunts with your gear. How fucking pointless," he said, also beginnings to take off his horse's saddle. Fat drops of rain were beginning to fall here and there.

"Trick-riding isn't pointless," she said. "And I'll have you know that I can still do some of it with gear on."

"'Trick-riding'," he repeated and guffawed, though he wasn't sure why. Part of him was glad no one else was around to hear that term and make an innuendo of -

"So you are good on a horse, then, 'Cee! Good news for you, Kirstein!"

Jean snapped his head around at Eren's voice and spotted him rushing by with an armful of firewood, an embarrassed Armin in tow. His laughter vanished with him as they entered the chalet, and not a moment later the sky finally opened up in one huge deluge.


	24. Spin - OCs

Rating: T for language only  
Characters: Mercedes, Western Division cadets [OCs]  
Genre: 'Backstory', Humor

Based off a Tumblr 'prompt' that said 'spin the bottle but instead of kissing you fight'. Takes place prior to events in The Jaguar, in one of the Western Division of the 104th Trainee Corps' dorms.

* * *

 **Spin**

Mercedes turned over in her bunk yet again at another wave of shouting and goading traveling down the length of the dorm. It was followed by laughter and someone being smacked into the floor. This had been going on for nearly an hour, now - quiet and secretive at first but gradually getting more and more out of hand - and she was surprised the wardens hadn't heard the racket and come to investigate. She was the only one trying to get a good night's sleep, due to her weekly stint at the Southern Division camp tomorrow.

At another burst of voices, Mercedes had enough. She threw her pillow on the floor and hauled herself out of bed. She stomped toward the other fifteen or so cadets gathered in a broad ring at the back of the large room in the light of an oil lamp balanced precariously on a bedpost. Even Fhalz was over there, hiding a snicker behind a hand as he sat with Henri and Malik on a top bunk.

"What the fuck are you doing…" Mercedes groaned and pushed her hair out of her face.

No one paid her attention enough to answer; they were too focused on Esme reaching forward into the middle of a tighter inner ring of six cadets to spin an empty green glass bottle from who knew where. The group snickered and made expectant noises while it span, then slowed, and eventually stopped completely to point at Katka, who rolled her eyes.

"Is this that kissing game?" Mercedes sighed. "What are you, seven?"

Esme finally glanced up at her. "There you are. Nah," he said with a shrug. "My round - whoever in this circle gets picked twice, we fight."

It was Mercedes' turn to roll her eyes. "How long is that gonna fucking take. I need sleep. Move over, Sieg'." She pushed Siegfried aside with her leg until he moved over for her, and she sat down. More laughter, a couple of claps. Irritably she reached in and span the bottle, earning a pout from Esme.

"Round's reset - new contender!" Malik cackled, behind her.

It took a few spins, but Mercedes felt victorious when she was the first to be picked twice. Esme smirked and got to his feet among the cheers, and rolled his head on his shoulders until his blond collar-length hair fell over his nose and he had to swipe it away with a finger. The other players backed away, leaving the middle aisle between the bunks clear, and Esme took up a fighting stance.

Mercedes hopped to her feet, took a step in his direction, and punched his lights out. He dropped like a sack of potatoes and the room went quiet. She shook out her knuckles and walked back to her bunk. "Good game."


	25. Hungers - Sasha

Rating: K+  
Characters: Sasha  
Genre: 'Character-Study'

Quick soliloquy piece in the style of 'Bravery' and 'Empathy' (Alphabetique collection)

* * *

 **Hungers**

Why won't they just let it go.

I'm tired of being known for one stupid potato incident. Not because of embarrassment or shame, but because it oversimplifies it. They care that it was funny. They care that it makes it easier to identify me. They think it was a stupid move on my part. They think it didn't occur to me to know better than to eat during a line-up. They never stopped to ask why I did it and I suppose I can't expect them to, because that'd mean they'd have to know hunger and I don't think most of them do.

Of course there's the hunger of a bad winter, or a poor crop, when you feel like your ribs are breaking and you're past eating the discards, past boiling the bones for broth - when you're walking for miles just for a rabbit and choosing which horse you can do without and you're boiling shoe leather. They don't know how paranoid that makes you - a paranoia that sours the gratefulness of a good harvest, because you're so preoccupied with 'waste not, want not'. How you can't stand the taste of salt thereafter because of how much meat you've had to cure, just in case.

But there are other hungers - these at least I've seen in some of the other trainees. The hunger for freedom, or to get into the Interior, or to kill all the Titans, or love. I don't want a sack of potatoes and a leg of beef alone. I want them - and I will have them any chance I get - to propel my body forward, to give it strength to pursue my other hungers. And I'll be damned if I let anything interrupt or stand in my way.


	26. Emerald - OCs

Rating: T for adult language  
Characters: Mercedes, Baena (OCs)  
Genre: Friendship

* * *

 **Emerald**

It was a lazy day. Baena and Mercedes' two roommates, Sally and Oona, had left about an hour ago for duty and while that had made Mercedes stir, she'd dropped back to sleep soon after. Baena had tried her best to lie quietly in her bunk above her friend's, but being a morning person, she was eager not to waste the day. A glance up and behind her at the tall window told her the sun had finally made it above the rooftops of Trost.

She couldn't take it anymore. Baena sat up and stretched loudly before climbing out of bed and stretching some more; in the process she nudged Mercedes' back with her foot. "Up you get, sleepy-head!"

Mercedes grunted and readjusted her head on her pillow. "No."

"It looks like it'll be a beautiful day today. We should do something."

Baena tried not to be put off by Mercedes' loud sigh, or by her comment of, "Like sleep." They hadn't lived together long; it'd been only two months since Mercedes had approached her about joining her squad and only a month since Mercedes had moved in. Altogether not entirely convinced of her value to the squad, Baena had done her best to bond anyway and had met mixed results. There was something holding Mercedes back from opening up fully and she had no choice but to accept that. Any progress was good progress at this point.

"I was thinking more like breakfast and a run!" Baena flipped back Mercedes' blankets.

Mercedes reluctantly conceded defeat and uncurled her body, lying flat on her back. She pushed a hand into her hair to get it out of her face, and yawned. "Sure, fine. Run first, then breakfast."

Baena hummed happily to herself and pulled out her drawer beneath Mercedes' bunk in order to get her workout clothes. She turned her back to the other girl to step into them. When she turned back around she found Mercedes with one foot braced on the edge of the drawer, peering down between the curtains of her hair at the little hinged glass and brass box in which Baena kept her few items of jewelry. None of it was as grand, in Baena's opinion, as the bangle Mercedes herself always wore, so her interest was unexpected.

"I forget you're from Wall Sina, sometimes," said Mercedes.

"Ehrmich, yeah," Baena said. Though Mercedes' tone had been without judgment, Baena very much wanted to shut the drawer, hide her jewelry and her nicer clothes. Blend in. "I don't miss it, really." She missed her family, though. She occupied herself with tying the drawstring of her pants. When she looked up Mercedes was watching her, and Baena hummed curiously.

After a pause Mercedes, smiling, said, "When I was little I always wanted to get my ears pierced."

"Really?" It was a surprisingly humanizing confession from her squad leader and perhaps an opportunity. "You never got it done?" she tipped her head a little to try in vain to see Mercedes' earlobes.

"Never an opportunity or a priority," Mercedes shrugged.

Baena folded her legs underneath her beside the drawer and plucked out the palm-sized box, opened it, and used a finger to stir the glittering contents. "Don't know why I brought this crap with me to be honest," she muttered to herself as she pulled out a few studs and held them in her palm for Mercedes to look at. "My favorites are those ones with the little bars and the quartz at the end. What kind do you like?"

"Uh," Mercedes seemed taken aback by the question. She hesitated and then breathed deep, huffing and resettling on the bunk, cursing, "Fuck I'm not good at this girly shit…"

She was closing back up - the last thing Baena wanted. She beamed happily, "Oh come on. I promise I won't tell if that's what you're worried about!"

Mercedes hesitated again; the redness Baena could just about see died in her cheeks. "I don't know - maybe these short ones?" she pointed to a pair of gold-mounted emeralds.

"The studs? Good choice! Very practical. Understated but classy," Baena encouraged sagely. She nodded at Mercedes' bangle sitting on the little shelf at the head of her bed, "Your jaguar has emeralds for eyes, right? They'd match."

* * *

"Holy fuck! Fuck - fuck in a barrel - shit - what the ever-loving - argh!" Mercedes yelped and though her hand shot up to her left ear, Baena swatted it away.

"Stop it! I need to see!"

"Who the fuck does this willingly?"

"Several people!"

Mercedes rolled her eyes and let Baena take her hand. She pushed half of an ice-cold apple into it and raised it to the back of her ear, pierced the needle into it so it could be pressed against the piercing. They left it there for a few minutes before Baena pulled the needle all the way through and, with blood-slippery fingertips, replaced it with the emerald stud. The first ear had been done already and she could still feel the sting. Baena retrieved the cold, antiseptic-soaked washrag and cleaned Mercedes' earlobe as gently as she could, and then her hands.

"There!" Baena said. She leaned to one side and blew out the oil lamp on the rug beside them.

Mercedes couldn't deny a little excited anticipation through the pain as Baena reached over her shoulder to her bunk to grab the handmirror. She held it up for her and Mercedes peered forward at her reflection. She turned her head from side to side a couple of times, and frowned. Her head fell back against her bed.

"What?" Baena asked.

Mercedes' head fell forward. Baena was peering over the mirror at her with a look of slightly hurt concern. Put-out as she was, Mercedes couldn't tell her. "Nothing," she said with a smile. "I just can't believe I let you do this," she added a huff of laughter to add to the effect.

Baena's face brightened. "I'm glad you did!" She began to clean up her crude equipment. "And I'm so glad you like those studs. I never really wear them even though my aunt Izzy gave them…"

Mercedes held up the handmirror once more, barely hearing Baena. She compared both of her reddened lobes, the bright green stones glinting in the afternoon sunshine streaming through their window. She supposed it wasn't the end of the world that they were a little crooked.


	27. Red - OCs

Rating: M (for gore)  
Characters: Mercedes, Fhalz, other Western Division members (OCs)  
Genre: Tragedy, horror, friendship

Follows 'The Massacre of the Western Division'.

* * *

 **Red**

It was the second day of the Trost cleanup; most crews had been sent outward radially from the inner gate, identifying and clearing bodies and debris one region at a time so that the civilians could gradually be moved back into the less damaged areas. A pair of crews, however, had been sent to the breach zone nearest the outer gate, where there was the most damage and carnage; it would take a greater amount of time to make the zone habitable again - they had to start now.

Although Chief Carlstedt-Gaus had tried to acquire an exception to cleanup duty for her surviving trainees, there had been no such luck. The eleven of them formed one of the two breach zone cleanup crews; as they had done when they had had greater numbers, the Western Division kept to themselves and within each other's line of sight - considering their one and only fracture-apart had led them to losing their other twenty-one graduating comrades, this was hardly surprising. The other cleanup crew - a mix of trainees from other divisions who purportedly 'needed to see the truth' that they hadn't otherwise been exposed to - left the Western Division alone.

Mercedes, having reluctantly held onto her de-facto leadership status among the eleven, surveyed the next part of the zone they were to move onto. The road was a straight line, though debris tried to obscure it. In the distance there was a slight rise before the land fell away into the breach zone proper. On this rise was the pile of sticks and stones that used to be The Legion's Rest.

Fhalz, ever on her right lately, said quietly, "We were just here."

Others of the eleven came to stand in the street beside her, and even the corpse wagon and older coroner's staff held back - perhaps having picked up on the particular tragedy that was the Western Division's massacre.

Mercedes glanced either side of her at the faces of her comrades - mixtures of anguish, numbness, or horror. Coleen even turned away and vomited for the second time that morning; Brighid held back her hair, trying not to sob.

The more sympathetic of the coroner's staff with them came up to Mercedes and said, "We can have another crew clear this area if -"

Mercedes took a deep breath of the putrid air through the handkerchief covering her nose and mouth, fought down her own nausea and steeled herself. "No," she said firmly. "We need to do this. We should be the ones."

"'Cee I don't think that's necessary," said Fhalz. His eyes were glancing side to side at the others. "I mean, some of these guys have already seen enough."

"We're the ones best able to identify them," Mercedes countered, raising her voice for the benefit of the others. "We can't exactly bring their family down here to do it." She looked around at the others, this time, "I can't - and won't - force you. If you want to sit this one out or work in another area, do it. But if you agree with me, let's keep going."

Mercedes walked forward, toward the last place they had seen the majority of their fellow trainees - before she had instructed them to retreat. But she couldn't allow her steps to grow heavy with the weight of that decision. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Fhalz kept pace with her. She heard others following her, and the creak of the corpse wagon and the _clops_ of the hooves of the horse that drew it. A glance behind her told her that the other ten continued to follow her. She didn't pause to enjoy the feeling of being obeyed - it was sour at this point, anyhow - or to insult them with platitudes - they were past those now - and instead, began pointing and directing them to their tasks.

 _Tasks,_ she thought. If she just kept them on task, herself on task, they could get through another day. They could beat back the terror, the guilt, for another day. If she concentrated on clearing the street, washing the blood from the bricks, piecing the bodies together in bags, there wouldn't be room to think about whether she could have done better. She'd done well the past day or two - almost to the point that it wasn't human flesh and Titan vomit that she was dealing with.

Victor, Conrad and Siegfried to debris removal. Coleen and Brighid to carting water from the nearest well on account of their weaker stomachs so that Penelope and Danika could sweep the worst of the blood and viscera into the sewer drains with the wide, coarse-bristled brooms. Eli and Kaspar did the bulk of the body-collecting; Fhalz, with his superior memory, identified them - or what remained of them - as best he could. Mercedes floated between them all to pitch in where needed.

As she veered away to help Coleen and Brighid get a head start on the water, Mercedes' eye was caught. Beside her feet, half-under a pile of roof tiles from the fallen tavern and sodden from sitting in the gutter, was Malik's upper half. Most of his skull had been smashed in, but she recognized him nonetheless.

 _What had I said to him and Henri that morning?_ she mused distantly. _"_ _We'll come drag you out of the ditch later when you're done."_

She blinked rapidly a few times, hurriedly moved the bulk of the tiles that trapped the shreds of his stomach. She couldn't drag him out, and be true to her word, however. Thankfully Eli had spotted her and took the initiative for her. She kept moving.

Kaspar stood in the street in the middle of a patch of red so thick it was like moss. Alternately he bent over or crouched and stood, stepping carefully here, then there, reaching out but retracting his hand just as quickly. Mercedes paused and watched this surreal dance of his for a few disassociated moments before realizing what it was: the spot where Esme and his father had been crushed underfoot by a Titan during the retreat; Kaspar was trying to find something identifiable to salvage, but nothing was large or solid enough. Eventually the boy gave up, crouching with his head in his hands.

Mercedes tried to swallow the burn at the back of her throat, the ache. Her mouth parted. _I should say something. I should do something._

But she couldn't. She turned down the nearest alley under the pretense of going to the well. The shadows from the buildings were cool on her hot forehead and neck, and welcome, even though the patch of unidentifiable red was still burned on her retinas as if she'd stared at the sun too long.

 _Calm down. They need you. After all you did, they need you. Calm down. This will be over soon, just one more -_

Xiersa and Pearl lay in a crumpled heap against the wall - Pearl's hand still gripped Xiersa's jacket, as if she'd been trying to pull her away or herself closer. Their blood had painted a wide, long flag on that wall from the third storey down. Pearl's silvery-blonde ringlets were stained a ridiculous pink, and Xiersa's teeth were shattered and spilling over her swollen lips. Their eyes were open wide.

Mercedes stumbled into the wall of the building opposite them, her hand over her mouth. She did not vomit like she'd expected - rather, her stomach seemed to drop and her lungs flatten. She began to shiver, more and more violently until her knees buckled a little. She took as deep a breath as she was able, looked up at the lines of cirrus over the blue sky to try to rein herself in - enough to glance down either end of the alley to verify that she was alone. That her composure could safely warp.

 _This is worse than my nightmares. This is worse than what they told us._

The dead did not look graceful; there was comedy in how they lay, in their last expressions. Mercedes had never thought that death would tempt the living to laugh - that was perhaps cruelest of all - to want to giggle just as much as wanting to claw one's eyes out.

Mercedes held herself and let out a single heave of a sob, continued to tremble the horror out of her through her aching calves that barely held her upright. She kept leaning heavily against the wall and hoped the others wouldn't see her. She pressed her lips shut so hard between her teeth to keep herself quiet that it hurt. Her eyes remained dry.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there, but she jumped at first when Fhalz carefully, then tightly, wrapped his arms around her - he had to squeeze his arm between her and the wall and the scuffing of his jacket on the stone was loud in the small space. She managed to release one hand from herself to hold on to him instead.

"Don't tell anybody," she said with difficulty.

If he was surprised at her childish display of pride even now, he didn't voice it. "Sure, 'Cee. I won't if you won't," he replied softly.

She felt a fat tear land on her knuckles and it shocked her - Fhalz never cried. It was just something understood. It pulled out the ache in her chest and she felt herself tearing up for the first time in what felt like forever. They held onto one another more tightly.

"More," she blurted, then realized she needed to complete the thought. "I should have saved more of them. My tactics were -"

"Don't. You did what you could - eleven of us got out rather than none - we won't talk about this ever again," he said firmly.

The order was what she needed - her body responded to it even when her mind and heart were tired. Her tears receded, her shaking stopped. Gradually, they let go of one another and stood upright. Without looking at one another, they carried on working - Mercedes retreated to the well as intended, Fhalz called for Kaspar and Eli.

She threw herself into the sheer single-minded nature of hard labor - jogging with an overflowing pail of water in each hand, back and forth; lending her shoulder to lifting roof beams out of the road; pulling crushed livestock out of the residences in which they'd fled; scouring the streets by sweeping until the blisters on her hands bled; tying off the body bags efficiently as tying a shoelace and heaving them into the back of the wagon with perhaps too detached a swing. Slowly the wagon, the crew, moved on through the breach zone - after an hour or so she no longer heard the orders she gave and no one spoke to her.

Eventually they must have made it past the massacre spot of their division; Mercedes only recognized this when, ironically, she did not recognize their surroundings. They'd met back up with the other cleanup crew. Although most of them were stopping for a break - shaking sips of water from canteens, untouched bread - Mercedes couldn't stop. If she stopped, she felt she'd drop dead.

She rounded the wagon to take inventory of how many body bags and lengths of rope they had left; she wasn't sure how it was possible, but the bodies were bleeding more now that they'd been disturbed and due to the slight incline they were on, it was slowly dripping out the back of the wagon. The smell was rank already and a raven tried to land on the wagon seat - she swatted at it and it cawed irritably at her. Although she glanced at the lines of corpses down either side of the wide belly of the wagon - the aisle between them getting smaller - she no longer saw them as friends lying there. Just bodies. Just things she was responsible for bringing back - just deliverables.

"Hey," said Fhalz.

She looked at him only briefly. She waited for him to make a comment about her needing to rest, but none came. He knew her too well.

After a moment's pause he sighed. "Kaspar found this near… near Esme. I think it's all we're going to be able to bring back to his family," he said. She turned from the three body bags they had left to see what he held: a simple chain clotted and stiff with blood - it was only by virtue of her remembering how he always wore it that she knew it to be silver.

"His father _was_ his only family," Mercedes clarified. "And Katka, I guess. Didn't find her."

"She must have been eaten, then."

Mercedes was drawn out of her apathy a little by his own. She watched his dirty, blood-streaked face. "You sound even worse than me, Fhalz."

He shrugged. "You know how I am."

She did. She understood it better than probably anyone. Fhalz's regard for his fellow man was complicated - utilitarian at best. The easiest way to surmise it was that caring wasn't useful for him and as such, was a limited resource he only gave to select people - he barely gave it to himself on the best of days.

"But I care about whether you care or not," he added. He held out Esme's chain and dropped it into the palm she raised. "I get worried when your internal compass is off a bit. If mine's off, what does it matter. Yours though."

She washed the chain with water from her canteen like some kind of rite, and then pocketed it. When she stood Fhalz had gone, conferring with the coroner's staff a ways off. The two crews were mingling, gradually getting back to work. Likewise did the various carrion birds mingle, above them - likewise were they getting back to work.

From not far away, Mercedes heard a girl's voice take up a song and encourage others to join in - some did. She located the voice as belonging to a tall, flimsy-looking blonde with the white of her uniform pants stained rusty-red at the knees and shins - she was throwing rocks at the crows and as they lifted, Mercedes could detect the spirits of those around her lifting too. The girl's unexpected cheeriness aside, at this distance - although knowing she could not be - she looked like Katka.

Mercedes faintly smiled.


	28. Fool's Errand - Shadis, OC

Rating: T for language only  
Characters: Keith Shadis, Miranda [OC]  
Genre: Friendship, Angst

Written for the #daretowrite Tumblr 500 prompt challenege, for the prompt 'blood handkerchief'.

* * *

 **Fool's Errand  
** _(for 'bloody handkerchief')_

He was never any good at days off. Shadis reflected this over and over as he begrudgingly took a detour on the way back from the tavern - which he hadn't much liked anyway - as soon as he'd spotted the light still on in the Trost HQ upper office. His office. Well, the Instructors' southern office - the one most used. His thoughts felt muddled after drinking with company and having to navigate their silly conversations. A fool's errand...a fool's errand to try to be normal.

 _Collier and Barton would be gone by now,_ he noted as he turned the street corner. _And we aren't expecting inspections at midnight. Unless someone's gone snooping…_ He thought of the new doorman, a youngster that somehow got lucky to do this rather than be on the Wall. Too nosy.

But as Shadis reached the three-storey building he saw said youngster where they should be - in the little cupboard-like hole next to the front door. Which meant that whomever was burning the midnight oil could be only one person.

Shadis sighed to himself. _Miranda._ He ignored the doorman's salute and took himself inside with a grunt.

He climbed the stairs, again begrudgingly. The offices were dark and this helped him right his brain, push out the distractions and the incredulity he'd been feeling at his wasted evening. He had worked with Miranda Carlstedt-Gaus for a little over a year now - she'd already been a Chief Instructor for five years before he came on board - and reluctantly, he'd become more and more accepting of her friendship as the disbelief that she could tolerate him no problem wore off. Normally a person of realism, friendliness, and the occasional bout of mischief, she had closed herself off from practically everyone following the death of her daughter, Ruth, in the Maria Reclamation Expedition three months ago. He felt a duty to at least get her to go home.

Shadis turned the brass handle of the glass-windowed door at the top of the stairs, found it locked. He pulled out his keys, found the right one, slid it in. A glance through the panes showed him that Miranda, as well as having rearranged the furniture, was nowhere to be seen. The door could only open so far, and he had to squeeze into the room.

"Go away," came a muffled call that he couldn't pinpoint the location of.

"It's me," he said.

"Doesn't matter."

There was no rhyme or reason to the furniture - the four Instructors' desks were at odd angles in the center of the room, and shelving units had their contents piled haphazardly everywhere so they could be dragged elsewhere - two were in front of the window on the far wall where his desk used to be, while another was what had partially blocked the door. Only the single oil lamp hanging in the center of the room was lit - three of their desk lamps were clustered on a chair to his left, while the fourth's shattered bulb was scattered over the oil smears on the floor. He wove his way inward carefully, avoiding stepping on or getting annoyed at the paperwork scattered underfoot.

Shadis wasn't sure how to deal with this - whatever 'this' was. "Didn't think your scrawny ass could move one of these," he rapped a knuckle on a heavy oak table, nudged one of its drawers closed with a toe.

The attempt at banter was met with silence rather than the usual parry.

He eventually located Miranda in the far corner of the room, where she'd barricaded herself with a lower shelving unit and a desk smashed together; she was sitting on the floor facing the wall, her body slumped against the drawers. Her reading glasses were by her feet and who knew where her uniform jacket was.

"It's not all that fun to play hide and seek by yourself," he tried again.

"Shut up."

Miranda had never outright insulted him, or said anything remotely angry or rude that she truly meant - it took him a moment to digest and not retort back with something worse. "That doesn't suit you."

"Well we can't be perfect all the time, Shadis - you should know."

That cut a bit deeper. It was even harder not to retort, to remember that this was coming from a place of grief. He noticed small blood smears on the arm of her pale gray blouse and as soon as he had, she pulled it toward her face out of sight to wipe something.

Shadis leant on the desk between them. "How long has it been since you slept?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Yes it does."

Silence.

"Do you want a drink?"

"That doesn't solve anything."

Shadis stood upright and couldn't stop his voice from raising, "Well damnit Miranda what do you want me to do? I'm trying, here."

Her head rose and though she didn't turn around, she shouted at the wall, "It's not my responsibility to guide you back to sympathy, Keith. I don't have the energy to coax you into being a better person today." She wiped at her eyes. "Now could you just go?"

Strangely, Shadis found himself flustered by her words. "'A better person'? Says the one who had to destroy our fucking office rather than her own home." He regretted it as soon as he said it. But it did achieve a bit of a result.

At last Miranda turned, and stood. Her face was aghast. He could see that at some point she must have bitten her lip so hard that it bled, and her face was a bizarre mixture of puffy and gaunt, with nail marks on her cheeks and temples - her eyes seemed almost as sunken and dull as his own when normally they sparkled, and were red-rimmed and wet. Her high-collared blouse was rumpled and untucked, and her hair unwashed. "My daughter - my only daughter - has died, you fuck," she spat.

"They all die - we all die!" he tried. Surely she could see that? She was normally practical and rational and could see the bigger picture. "You trained her yourself and you did a good job. It was duty. What else were you expecting?"

Her face grew stony. She licked her lips, then said quietly but with a tremor, "Just because you don't have a child yourself...does not give you the right to tell a parent that their grief isn't valid, or that their love for them above all others ends at death. You are not part of that process. You have no say in it. You have no right to weigh that love against anything else in this world." She paused, squinted at him, "Do you understand?" her voice was cracked, nearly a whisper. She resumed biting her lip so hard the skin around it became even paler than it already was.

Shadis remained quiet. He looked away from her because his dignity wouldn't allow a verbal apology. He did understand, in a way, but in another he couldn't. He never would and in thinking back to Carla he felt a familiar stab of resentment in his gut. But what else could he do? What other thought could he offer that might drag Miranda out of this pit? Was it even worth his time after all?

"Go away," she tried again. The fact that her voice was suddenly fragile as snow had him looking back at her. She was crying, and her lip bleeding afresh. She was turning away, sitting back down in the shadows.

Pity for her soured his self-loathing, strangely like a long thirst being quenched with a cold drink of water. His muscles relaxed and he pressed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes. He truly was no good at this, but he had to try. He sat on the desk and swung his legs over to her side to join her in the small space. Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out his handkerchief and held it in front of her. "Your lip's bleeding again," he said softly.

After a moment she took it, pressing it to her lip at first tenderly, and then hard over her mouth to stifle louder sobs. Shadis sat down with her awkwardly, knees around his ears and his back to the corner of the bookshelf. He rested a hand on her back and left it there, watching it bob and shake with her crying and feeling his palm gradually grow warmer.


End file.
